Preamble

The Rouse met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Aberdeen Harbour Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Edinburgh Royal Maternity and Simpson Memorial Hospital Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Macduff Harbour Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

NORTH-WEST FRONTIER OPERATIONS (MEDAL).

Major-General Sir ALFRED KNOX: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has yet come to a decision regarding the grant for a medal to the troops engaged in recent military operations on the North-West Frontier of India?

The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare): Yes, Sir; it has been decided that a medal should be awarded. The conditions of award are still under consideration.

SITUATION.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can make any statement as to the present state of affairs in India?

Sir S. HOARE: The past week has again been uneventful.

INDIAN ARMY (REDUCTIONS).

Sir A. KNOX: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether, in deciding for motives of economy to disband nine pioneer regiments, he will take into consideration the special hardship involved in the disbandment of the Hazara pioneers, the men of which are Persian-speaking Shiahs who have left their homes under the Suni Government of Afghanistan in order to serve the British Crown?

Sir S. HOARE: Yes, Sir; I have impressed on the Government of India the desirability of doing all they can to mitigate the hardship involved in the disbandment of these men, and am sure that they are fully alive to that aspect of the matter.

Sir A. KNOX: Could not economies be effected in these new provincial administrations that it is proposed to set up rather than disband loyal regiments?

Sir S. HOARE: I think everyone has been very sorry to see the disbandment of these units, but, unfortunately, as the result of military developments, they no longer have the military value that they have hitherto had, and on that account it has been necessary to disband them. Everything possible will, however, be done to find employment for the men.

DISTURBANCES.

Sir REGINALD CRADDOCK: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for India if he will give the House information as to the recent occurrence in the Agra district when the police had to resort to firing in order to rescue a woman who would otherwise have been forced to submit to suttee?

Sir S. HOARE: As the answer is unavoidably rather long, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

On 29th August the police received information that an attempt might be made to perform sati in the village of Nagar in the Agra district. Early next morning a crowd began to collect, but the widow announced that she would not do sati. After being allowed to pass through the courtyard of the widow's house in order to see her, the crowd then gradually dispersed. Later in the afternoon, however, it once more collected to the number of 5,000 or 6,000, and planted itself down all round the house and in the courtyard in the hope of persuading the widow to perform sati. It was left alone for a time, but eventually the widow and her relatives objected, and the police ejected the people from the courtyard. The crowd then started to throw stones and an attempt was made to set fire to the thatched roof of the house. The situation soon became so serious that the police were forced to open fire. As this was ineffective horn inside the courtyard, the station officer took his men outside and opened fire again. On re-entering the courtyard he found that in his absence the widow had been removed from the house by the crowd and taken off to the burning ghat. He immediately proceeded there with his party of police and was again attacked with stones. Firing was once more opened and the widow rescued and taken
to the police station. Four deaths were caused by the firing and seven persons were wounded. Sixteen policemen were slightly injured by stones.

Sir R. CRADDOCK: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for India if he will give any information as to the circumstances which led to the killing of 26 Muslims by armed Sikhs in the village of Badhlada, in the Hissar district of the Punjab?

Sir S. HOARE: I understand that the origin of the trouble was the theft of a cow belonging to Sikh Jats some time previously by a Moslem Rajput youth who is alleged to have handed it over to a Moslem butcher for slaughter. The matter was reported to the police and arrests followed. At a meeting on the 8th October of Sikhs and Hindus at Budhlada village, when a resolution was framed pressing for the punishment of the offender, the sub-inspector of police assured those present that legal action was being taken, and nothing occurred to cause any apprehension of an outbreak of violence. On the 11th October, however, three Sikh Jats appeared at dusk in the village of Budhlada and shot everybody they met., killing six persons including one woman, and wounding 10, of whom one subsequently died. They then proceeded to the village of Talwandi where they shot eight persons and wounded some more. The matter is in the hands of the police but I am not aware whether any arrest has yet been made.

CONSTITUTION PROPOSALS.

Sir R. CRADDOCK: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether His Majesty's Government will consider themselves bound by any decisions taken, either in conjunction with the delegates of the Round Table Conference or otherwise, prior to the sittings of the Joint Select Committee?

Sir S. HOARE: The proposals which His Majesty's Government will in due course place before the Joint Select Committee will be presented on the responsibility of His Majesty's Government alone, and it goes without saying that they will support them, including any upon which agreement has been reached with the Indian delegates at the Conference. But it will be clear from my statement of 27th June that the whole purpose of the
special Joint Select Committee procedure is to obtain full discussion and criticism of the proposals by Members of Parliament and, I hope, by representative Indians, before a Bill is introduced.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: In order to preserve absolute freedom for this Committee, will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that no pledges will be given at the Round Table Conference and that any representations made by the Indian representatives will simply be noted for communication to the Joint Select Committee?

Sir S. HOARE: I have already explained the position in my speech of 27th June and subsequently on several occasions. I have nothing to add to what I have already said.

ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether any estimate has been made of the cost of the Indian Round Table Conference to the Treasury and to the Government of India, respectively?

Sir S. HOARE: The cost of the three Conferences already held, including the Burma Conference, and the estimated cost of the forthcoming Conference amount together to about £195,000, of which about £71,000 falls on British and £124,000 on Indian revenues.

MOORING MAST, KARACHI.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether any agreement has yet been arrived at with the Government of India for the purchase of the mooring mast at Karachi from the British Government?

Sir S. HOARE: The Government of India have accepted entire liability for the provision of the mooring mast at Karachi.

JUTE TRADE DISPUTE, CALCUTTA.

Mr. HICKS: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can make any statement about the recent dispute in the jute mills in Calcutta involving the stoppage of work of about 18,000 operatives?

Sir S. HOARE: I presume the hon. Member is referring to the strikes that took place in August. The mills affected
were the Ganges Jute Mills, the Howrah Jute Mills and the Port, William Jute Mills. The strike began on the 11th August and ended on the 25th, when the strikers returned to work unconditionally.

AIR-MAIL SERVICE.

Mr. HICKS: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can make any statement as to the extension of the air-mail service from Karachi to Madras?

Sir S. HOARE: A weekly air-mail service between Karachi and Madras via Bombay commenced on 15th October last. It is being operated by Messrs. Tata and Sons, Limited, Bombay, under an agreement entered into with the Government of India. The contract is for a period of 10 years. No subsidy is involved, and the company are being paid according to the weight of mail matter actually carried. The service connects with Imperial Airways service between London and Karachi, and correspondence from London carried all the way by air should reach Bombay and Madras two days sooner than has hitherto been possible.

BROADCASTING (NATIONAL CONGRESS).

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether the Indian National Congress continue to broadcast wireless programmes; whether the Government has been able to locate the broadcasting station; and whether any arrests have been made in connection with the matter?

Sir S. HOARE: At the end of September the Bombay police carried out a series of raids and arrested several of those believed to be primarily responsible for the Congress wireless broadcasts. They failed, however, to locate the transmitter. I have not received any later information.

BICYCLE CHITTAGONG.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can state the reason why, in addition to a curfew order, the riding of ordinary bicycles has been forbidden in Chittagong?

Sir S. HOARE: Both the curfew order and the order prohibiting the use of bicycles apply to youths of the Hindu Bhadralok class only. It is from this
class that the terrorists operating in Chittagong draw their recruits, and they have been in the habit of using bicycles to act as scouts for the terrorists.

MR. GANDHI.

Mr. BERNAYS: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for India what facilities are granted to Mr. Gandhi in order that he may keep himself informed of the political situation in India?

Sir S. HOARE: Mr. Gandhi is a State prisoner and must of course be subject to the prison regulations. He is, however, allowed to see without restriction those whose object it is to discuss with him the subject of Untouchability and, as the hon. Member will have seen in the Press, he is freely allowed to write letters for publication on that subject. As regards the general political situation, it may be assumed that Mr. Gandhi is fully acquainted with the present position. At the time of his fast, when exceptional facilities were granted, he was able to ascertain the views of his friends on the general situation. He has daily access to the newspapers. Any letters aimed at influencing him in the direction of abandoning civil disobedience would reach him. If he has changed his view in regard to civil disobedience, there is nothing to hinder him from bringing the fact to the notice of the Government.

Mr. BERNAYS: Are we to understand that it is only on the problem of Untouchability that Gandhi is allowed interviews?

Sir S. HOARE: In view of what I have said, I am not satisfied that other interviews would lead to any useful result. In any case, I must make it clear that the Government adhere to the view expressed by me in the House of Commons on 29th April, when I said that there could not be any question of making a bargain with Congress.

MAGISTRATE'S ORDER, MIDNAPUR.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the order, under Section 4 of Ordinance G of 1932, issued by the district magistrate of Midnapur, to the effect that a certain Balai Guchhait, of Chilmara, who used to sell vegetables daily in Anandpur bazaar, but had ceased to do so, should be com-
pelled for one month from the date of receipt of notice to sell vegetables at least twice a week in Anandpur and report himself each time to the sub-registrar of Anandpur; and whether the use of ordinances in this way meets with the approval of his Department?

Sir S. HOARE: I have seen a question asked on this subject in the Legislative Assembly and am sending the hon. Member a copy of the proceedings. As he will observe, the matter has been brought to the notice of the Bengal Government.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. Gentleman reply to the latter part of the question; and does he think that it is consistent with dignity to promulgate such a ridiculous Order?

Sir S. HOARE: I cannot say whether it is a ridiculous Order until I obtain the information I require. It may have been a very useful Order.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, when the Order was issued, any statement was made relating to the prices at which these vegetables which have to be sold are to be sold?

Sir S. HOARE: No, Sir. As this is not a Socialist Administration we cannot dictate prices in that manner. I have told the hon. Member, however, that I am making inquiries about this case, and I think that he will find, when I obtain the information, that the Order was thoroughly justified.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

SUGAR MACHINERY (IMPORTS, INDIA).

Mr. HANNON: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for India if he is aware that material and machinery for Indian sugar factories have been ordered in Continental countries last year, and that one of the Indian delegates to the Ottawa Conference placed a contract with a Continental firm for £100,000 worth of sugar manufacturing machinery within a few days of his return to London from Ottawa; and if, in the introduction of preferential treatment of British goods into India, he will include machinery employed in the manufacture of sugar?

Sir S. HOARE: I am aware that some sugar machinery was imported into India
from Continental countries last year. I have no information regarding the second part of the question. As regards the last part, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave last Monday to my hon. Friend the Member for East Bradford (Mr. J. Hepworth).

Mr. HANNON: Following on the reply which the right hon. Gentleman gave on Monday, will he take steps to impress on the Government of India the importance of giving preferential treatment to this kind of machinery?

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Do I understand correctly that the right hon. Gentleman accepts the statement in the question that one of the delegates to the Ottawa Conference has placed with a Continental firm an order for £100,000?

Sir S. HOARE: I have said I have no information regarding the second part of the question. In reply to my hon. Friend's supplementary question. I have really nothing to add to what I have already said. This was not one of the items included in the Ottawa Agreement. I can tell him that it is the general policy of the Indian Government to admit machinery free. It is only owing to the financial emergency that a duty has been placed upon machinery. I hope that with better times we may see it removed?

Mr. HANNON: Will the right hon. Gentleman draw the attention of the Indian Government to this case?

Mr. KIRKPATRICK: Would it not assist the object in view if the Department of Overseas Trade and manufacturers of sugar-making machinery in this country were to co-operate in some way to encourage young Indians to come to this country to be trained as sugar technologists?

BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR.

Mrs. SHAW: 23.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he will consider making arrangements for the British Industries Fair being held occasionally in Glasgow, with a view to encouraging Scottish trade and industry?

Lieut.-Colonel J. COLVILLE (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which. I made on 18th April to my hon. Friend the Member for North Lanark (Mr. Anstruther-Gray), of which I am sending her a copy.

Sir ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: Is it not a fact that if Glasgow desires to have a fair in the same way as Birmingham, and likes to pay for it, she can do what Birmingham does?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I think my hon. Friend might also look up the answer to which I have referred.

RE-EXPORTED BOTTLES.

Mr. MITCHELL: 66.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether foreign bottles imported into the United Kingdom filled with beer, and subsequently re-exported, are being granted any rebate on the Customs duty?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha): No drawback of the duty chargeable under the Import Duties Act, 1932, on imported bottles is payable on their exportation.

FOREIGN COUNTRIES (BRITISH INVESTORS).

Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 18.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that all the Argentine railways capitalised by British investments have presented joint notes to the Argentine national and provincial Governments, requesting a reduction of the indebtedness to those railways in accordance with the judgment of the Argentine National Supreme Court that the railways are not obliged to effect services for the nation or provinces without payment at the time in cash; and will he represent to the Argentine Government that they should meet, in cash their obligations to the railways before the conclusion of any discussions about the import into Britain of Argentine wheat and meat?

Sir ROBERT GOWER: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will consider the desirability of making representations to the Government of the Argentine Republic regarding its failure to pay the freight charges due from it to British railway companies operating in the Argentine, thereby causing losses to British investors?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir John Simon): I understand that negotiations on this question are now proceeding actively be-
tween the railway companies and the authorities concerned, and I trust that they may be successful. No request for official action has been received from the railway companies, in whose hands I think the matter should be left for the present.

Sir B. FALLE: 19.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, now that the Chilean presidential election is over, he will take steps to secure a cessation of the default by the Chilean Government on its obligations to British subjects who have invested their savings in loans of the Chilean Government raised by public subscription in Britain?

Sir J. SIMON: There have been clear indications that Chile, in accordance with her financial traditions, intends to resume payment so soon as the improvement of the fiscal resources and the availability of international exchange permits of this being done. In particular, His Majesty's Government have been gratified to note from the Press that the newly elected President of the Republic, Senor Alessandri, has declared his determination to do his best to find some honourable and satisfactory solution. The Council of Foreign Bondholders are maintaining contact with the Chilean Embassy in London regarding these defaults, but I do not consider that official representations would serve any useful purpose at the present time.

Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLE: 20.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make representations to the Hungarian Government that they should carry out their undertaking to British holders of defaulted pre-War Hungarian Government and municipal securities in accordance with the arrangement hitherto administered by the Anglo-Hungarian clearing office?

Sir J. SIMON: His Majesty's Government have already urged the Hungarian Government that payments in arrear in respect of these obligations should be effected at the earliest possible moment and that future payments will be punctually made as they fall due. The Hungarian Government, in their reply, have emphasised their desire to fulfil these obligations, but have stated that, in the
present financial situation of the country, it is materially impossible for them to do so.

CHINA (SHANGHAI).

Sir JOHN WARDLAW-MILNE: 21 and 22.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1), whether any notice has been given to terminate the agreement regarding the district courts of Shanghai; and, if so, by whom;
(2), whether any and, if so, what steps have been taken by His Majesty's Government to provide for the revision of -the agreement, expiring on 1st April next, between the Chinese Government and the Powers representing the International Settlement relating to the special district court in Shanghai?

Sir J. SIMON: No notice has been given to terminate the agreement. Appropriate measures for the remedy of such abuses as at present exist are under consideration and have been the subject of discussions between His Majesty's Chargé d'Affairs and the Chinese authorities.

Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is it not necessary now to give notice if we are to get real reforms; and, if notice is given, will my right hon. Friend endeavour to make sure that the municipal council of Shanghai are fully consulted regarding any changes which are necessary, and, if necessary, represented on any body set up to consider this case?

Sir J. SIMON: I should like to consider the second part of the question. As regards the first part of the question of my hon. Friend, I may remind him that he was informed on 22nd June by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that:
The terms of the present arrangement are to the effect that it continues in force until 1st April, 1933, but may be extended for an additional period upon mutual consent of the parties thereto."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 22nd June, 1932; col. 1105, Vol. 267.]
My hon. Friend will therefore appreciate that it is not a case in which notice has to be given.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

LIVESTOCK OFFICERS.

Mr. GLOSSOP: 25.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will take steps to
revise the personnel of the selection board which has the appointment of livestock officers in such a way that one-third of the members are practical agriculturists?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Major Elliot): The selection board consists of three persons, one of whom is the Ministry's Livestock Commissioner, who has a practical knowledge and experience of farming and livestock breeding. Effect is therefore already given to my hon. Friend's suggestion as to the composition of the Board.

POTATO INDUSTRY.

Mr. LIDDALL: 26.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if with the object of retaining agricultural workers in employment, he will take steps to prohibit the importation of all foreign potatoes so long as the home crop is sufficient for the home market at reasonable prices based on cost of production?

Major ELLIOT: I regret that I do not see my way to adopt the suggestion made by my hon. Friend. I would remind him however, that the position with regard to imports of potatoes has been considered by the Import Duties Advisory Committee and that, following on their recommendation on the subject a duty of £1 per ton has been charged since the 28th July last on all imports of foreign potatoes.

IRISH CATTLE (IMPORTS).

Mr. LIDDALL: 27.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if in the interest of the English stock breeder and feeder, he will, in view of the numbers of Irish cattle awaiting shipment, take steps to have the importation of these cattle strictly limited and only permitted under licence?

Captain McEWEN: 29.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what steps, if any, he contemplates taking in view of the threatened heavy importation of Irish cattle?

Major ELLIOT: I can assure my hon. Friends that no relevant factor will be overlooked in the consideration now being given to the situation in our livestock industry.

Mr. HEALY: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that Ireland is
the only country with whom we had a favourable balance of trade in 1931?

PIG INDUSTRY.

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: 28.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that practically the whole of the English York ham trade and much of the English bacon trade is carried on by Midland curers, who handle bacon of a different type to the usual Wiltshire cut; and whether, in considering the Report of the Reorganisation Commission for Pigs and Pig Products, he will take steps to adequately safeguard the interests of this section of the industry, which handles several thousand pigs per week and finds employment for large numbers of workers?

Major ELLIOT: I am aware of the importance of the Midland curing trade and can assure my hon. Friend that due regard will be paid to all relevant factors in any action taken by the Government upon the report of the Reorganisation Commission.

Mr. REMER: 34.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will now publish the Report of the National Pig Council?

Major ELLIOT: I assume that my hon. Friend refers to the Report of the Pig Industry Council which was presented in January last. This report has throughout been regarded as confidential. It was placed before the Reorganisation Commission which has recently reported and no circumstance has arisen which appears to me to afford any real justification for departing from my predecessor's decision not to arrange for publication.

Mr. REMER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that no member of the council regards the document as confidential? Is he aware that there are many people in this country who know perfectly well what is in the report?

Major ELLIOT: It was addressed to the Minister and the Minister regards it as confidential. It has been fully considered, and its conclusions, in so far as they were relevant, incorporated in the commission's report, which has been widely published.

Mr. REMER: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that his predecessor showed a copy of the report to representatives of the Farmers' Union?

IRISH WORKERS.

Mr. STOURTON: 32.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what steps the Ministry of Agriculture take to ascertain the extent of migration of agricultural labourers from Northern and Southern Ireland to England?

Major ELLIOT: Such information as is available in my Department is obtained from reports of outdoor officers who, in the course of their normal duties, furnish information as to the condition of agricultural employment in their districts and who are asked to include at appropriate seasons any information which comes into their possession as to the extent to which workers from Ireland are being engaged or employed for work on the land.

Mr. STOURTON: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that we have already a grave unemployment problem in agriculture, and cannot he undertake, in the circumstances, to restrict the migration of Irish agricultural labourers into this country?

Mr. HEALY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Englishmen occupy many of the best-paid posts in Ireland? Will he arrange to call them home?

Major ELLIOT: I will not interfere in Irish internal affairs. In response to the first supplementary question, I may say that there are no powers in the Department by which any such restrictions could be imposed.

CROWN LEASES (CARLTON GARDENS AND TERRACE).

Sir W. DAVISON: 30.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what were the terms of reference to the Royal Fine Art Commission with regard to the proposed new building to be erected on the site of No. 4, Carlton Gardens; whether the Commission considered the question as to whether a building standing some 50 feet above the adjoining property, and visible from nearly the whole of the new processional road, known as the Mall, will or will not be detrimental to the appearance of the facade of Carlton House Terrace and Carlton Gardens, abutting on the Mall; and what was the date of the meeting of the Commission when this matter was considered?

Major ELLIOT: Drawings of the new building proposed to be erected on the
site of No. 4, Carlton Gardens, were submitted for the consideration of the Royal Fine Art Commission on 28th July last by the building lessees' architect in accordance with a stipulation made by the Commissioners of Crown Lands. I understand that the architect laid before the Royal Commisison a full description of the proposed building, but there were no formal terms of reference. The height of the old building was 61 feet 10 inches to the coping and the height of the adjacent house, No. 1, Carlton House Terrace, is 71 feet 10 inches to the coping. The height of the new building is 80 feet to the coping. The maximum height of the roof will be 101 feet, but the effect of the increased height will be discounted by the setting back of the top two storeys. The Royal Commission were not asked to advise on the question of height, which was settled, subject to their approval of the design, by the Commissioners of Crown Lands, after full consideration and discussion with their professional advisers.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that when his attention was drawn to this matter some months ago the House was informed that plans would be submitted to the Fine Arts Commission; and does not he think that it is rather misleading the House that only plans of the building should be submitted without drawing attention to the fact that it would tower 50 feet above the adjacent buildings?

Major ELLIOT: The Fine Arts Commission must be taken as understanding the possibilities of this very fine site, and the difficulties of any departure from the sky line of the buildings to be erected later on would no doubt be considered.

Sir W. DAVISON: Can nothing be done to protect this site and its amenities? In view of the advertisement which appears in the "Times" on Thursday last giving notice of this additional height, surely the Commission can take some action in the matter?

Major ELLIOT: No, Sir. The matter is decided.

Sir W. DAVISON: 31.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that the late tenants of No. 4, Carlton Gardens, and other houses in the vicinity, have applied to the Commissioners of
Crown Lands for leave to alter the character of their premises as a single private dwelling-house in accordance with the terms of their lease, and- have been refused; whether the clause in the leases of houses in Carlton House Terrace and Carlton Gardens requiring the houses to be used as private dwelling-houses only will now be waived; and whether, as is usually the case in large estates, any steps were taken to ascertain the feelings of the leaseholders of the properties in question before consent was given to the letting of a house for business purposes in this property?

Major ELLIOT: No application appears to have been received by the Commissioners of Crown Lands from the late lessees of No. 4, Carlton Gardens for permission to use the premises otherwise than as a private dwelling house, but the Commissioners themselves suggested to the lessees that any such proposal would be favourably considered. Within the last nine years applications for waiver of the covenant to which my hon. Friend refers have been received and granted in respect of eight out of the 31 houses in Carlton House Terrace and Carlton Gardens. Having regard to the changes which have already taken place and to representations made to them by several of the lessees, the Commissioners did not consider it necessary to consult the other lessees before consenting to the proposed new building on the site of No. 4, Carlton Gardens.

Sir W. DAVISON: Am I to understand that, if the other lessees desired to let their premises for business purposes, no objection would he raised on the part of the Commission?

Major ELLIOT: I could not go so far as that now, but I can certainly say that such applications would be considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

AIR-MAIL CHANGES.

Mr. JOEL: 36.
asked the Postmaster-General if he will state at what date the last agreement was made between the British and foreign postal administrations as to air-mail charges; and whether, in view of the fact that recent developments have resulted in an improvement
in the reliability of such services, he will now consider taking steps to obtain a revision of this agreement which will permit a rearrangement of the charges?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Kingsley Wood): There are no separate agreements between this country and foreign countries in regard to air-mail charges which are regulated in accordance with the Postal Union Convention. The rates paid by this country for the use of foreign air services are the same as those charged to other members of the Union, and there is consequently no scope for separate negotiations on the matter.

TELEGRAMS (CHRISTMAS GREETINGS).

Mr. PATRICK: 37.
asked the Postmaster-General whether, with regard to the proposal to introduce a scheme for special telegrams of Christmas greeting at reduced rates, precautions will be taken to avoid inflicting damage on the Christmas-card and connected trades?

Sir A. KNOX: 38.
asked the Postmaster-General whether, when considering the proposal for an issue of special telegram forms and envelopes with suitable Christmas designs, he will bear in mind the fact that such a scheme would injuriously affect the Christmas-card trade and the hundreds of artists, printers, and small stationers who depend upon it?

Sir K. WOOD: No proposals are under consideration either for reduced rate inland greeting telegrams or for the issue of special telegraph forms and envelopes for use at Christmas.

WIRELESS TELEPHONY.

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: 41.
asked the Postmaster-General whether the result of the recent experiments in wireless telephony has proved satisfactory; and whether he is now in a position to commence installation of wireless telephonic communication with outlying islands?

Sir K. WOOD: The experiment in short-wave radio-telephony across the Bristol Channel, to which I understand the hon. Members to refer, is proceeding satisfactorily; but it has not yet advanced beyond the experimental stage, and I cannot at present say when a wider use of this method of communication will become practicable.

PARCEL POST RATES.

Mr. DORAN: 42.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he can see his way to alter the present 3d., 6d., 9d., and Is. charges made for parcel-post transit in this country?

Sir K. WOOD: The present rates are 6d., 9d., Is., and 1s. 3d. for parcels up to 2, 5, 8, and 11 lb. respectively. In view of the loss which is at present incurred on the parcel post I regret that I am not in a position to reduce the rates.

TELEPHONE CHARGES.

Mr. DORAN: 43.
asked the Postmaster-General if he can see his way to revise the charges made at present for long-distance (inland) trunk calls or, alternatively, to extend the present three-minute period to six minutes?

Sir K. WOOD: Reductions in the charges for trunk calls are made whenever the financial situation permits; but I regret that I cannot see my way at present to take action on the lines suggested.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS.

ACOUSTICS.

Mr. CHALMERS: 44.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether, owing to the difficulty of hearing on the Benches at the back of the House below the Gangway on the Opposition side, he will consider taking steps to remedy this, either by some mechanical device or otherwise?

The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): This matter has been carefully considered, from time to time, by my predecessors, who have held that the disadvantages of introducing loud-speakers, or general amplifiers, quite apart from expense, would outweigh any possible advantages. I fear that any alternative to loud-speakers, such as the device already in the House of Lords, by means of microphones installed on the table, would be impracticable in this House in view of the different places from which Members speak, and the inconvenience of telephone lines between the Benches. My prima facie view is that the overwhelming majority of Members can be heard without mechanical amplification.

POLICE.

Mr. PIKE: 46.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he has any further statement to make respecting the cost of the police on duty at the House of Commons?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: From the official report of my reply to the supplementary question addressed to me by my hon. Friend last Tuesday, I appear to have stated that constables serving in this House were paid £1 3s. Id. for every eight hours they are on duty. The reply intended was that this is the daily rate of charge made by the Receiver of the Metropolitan Police for a constable's services. This charge represents not only the total cost of a constable, including pension, but also the cost of a substitute for the 75 days a year that a constable is, on the average, off duty owing to leave and sick leave.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 61.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the amount paid to ordinary constables serving in the House of Commons for an eight-hour duty and the average cost of administration expenses per man shift, giving both figures separately?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Oliver Stanley): Constables are not paid per hour of duty, but weekly. The pay of constables serving in this House ranges from 90s. to 95s. a week subject to a deduction of 5 per cent, for pension and an economy deduction which will now be at the rate of 8s. 6d. a week. They also receive a boot allowance of ls. a week and free quarters or an allowance in lieu. The average cost of administration can be put at ls. per man per day. As my right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works is explaining in reply to another question, the figure of £1 3s. ld. which he mentioned a few days ago is not the amount paid to the constable, but the charge made for a constable's services, including inter alia prospective charges for pension.

Oral Answers to Questions — POOR LAW.

WESTMINSTER INSTITUTION, FULHAM ROAD (DISTURBANCES).

Mr. THORNE: 49.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has received a re-
port from his inspector in connection with the disturbances at the Westminster Institution, Fulham Road; and what action he intends taking?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): My right hon. Friend has received a report from his general inspector. The disturbance was promptly dealt with, and no further action on my right hon. Friend's part appears to be necessary.

Mr. THORNE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Labour Master admitted that, although he had been there for seven or eight days, he had not examined the whole of the departments?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: According to my information the Master had only arrived the day before.

GERM CARRIERS.

Captain ERSKINE-BOLST: 50.
asked the Minister of Health the number of cases in which people employed in the manufacture and carriage of food have been detected to be germ carriers; and, if so, what action has been taken in each case?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: My right hon. Friend regrets that this information is not available.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

WORK SCHEMES (LOANS).

Captain ERSKINE-BOLST: 51.
asked the Minister of Health if he will state from what local authorities he has received requests for official sanction for loans by local authorities for reproductive purposes; what are the schemes they put forward; and what was the ministerial reply in each case?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: The information would have to be specially prepared and therefore my right hon. Friend is not able to furnish my hon. and gallant Friend with it at the moment, but he may state that it is the policy of the Government to sanction loans for remunerative works, and a large number of sanctions have been given. My right hon. Friend is not at present aware of
any case where an application for loan has been refused for satisfactory works which were self-supporting.

DISCHARGED RAILWAY SERVANTS.

Mr. LUNN: 52.
asked the Minister of Labour how many of the men of all grades dismissed by the railway companies during the past 12 months are eligible for unemployment benefit; and whether any steps are being taken to provide for those who are not eligible for unemployment benefit?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson): Railway servants who become unemployed are all eligible for insurance benefit in accordance with the usual conditions if they were insured while in employment. Those excepted from the payment of unemployment insurance contributions on the ground that their employment is permanent are of course not eligible for benefit.

Mr. LUNN: 69.
asked the Minister or Transport the number of men of all grades dismissed by the railway companies during the past 12 months?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam): Particulars are furnished and published annually of the number of persons employed by the railway companies during a week in March in each year, but I have no information as to the number of men dismissed.

CIRCUS PERFORMERS.

Mr. REMER: 53.
asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware of the unemployment amongst British circus performers if he will take steps to inform the circus proprietors that permits to foreign artists will not be granted unless an undertaking is given that 50 per cent. of the salaries at the forthcoming Christmas circus programmes in Great Britain shall be paid to British artists; and if he will state the nature of his reply to the communication addressed to him from the Variety Artists' Federation on this subject?

Mr. HUDSON: My right hon. Friend has been in communication with the British Circus Proprietors and the Variety Artistes' Federation on the engagement of foreign performers, and discussions are still proceeding.

STATISTICS

Mr. THORNE: 54.
asked the Minister of Labour if he can state the number of persons registered at Employment Exchanges for the first week ended in November, 1931, and the number on the nearest available date; and the number of persons who have applied for transitional payments since the operation of the means test to the nearest available date?

Mr. HUDSON: At 2nd November, 1931, there were 2,710,944 persons on the registers of Employment Exchanges in Great Britain. The number at 26th September, 1932, was 2,858,011. The total number of initial applications for transitional payments between 12th November, 1931, and 1st October, 1932, was 2,283,563.

Mr. THORNE: 55.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of persons refused transitional benefit who have discontinued registering at Employment Exchanges and are still unemployed?

Mr. HUDSON: I regret that statistics giving the information desired are not available.

UNEMPLOYMENT GRANTS COMMITTEE.

Captain ERSKINE-BOLST: 56.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he proposes to revive the activities of the Unemployment Grants Committee; and, If so, on what lines?

Mr. HUDSON: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the statement made by my right hon. Friend in Friday's Debate.

ALIENS.

Mr. HANLEY: 64.
asked the Home Secretary the latest figure of the number of aliens in the United Kingdom and how many of them are engaged in insurable industry?

Mr. STANLEY: According to the latest information there are about 218,000 aliens registered in the United Kingdom. Information as to the number of aliens covered by health or unemployment insurance is not available.

EDUCATION (SCHOOL POPULATION).

Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: 58.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education if he will state what is the
estimate of the number of children of school-attendance age who will require to be dealt with in the years 1935 to 1940 as against the five years 1925 to 1930?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Ramsbotham): The number of children over the age of five on the registers of public elementary schools was, approximately, 5,350,000 in 1925 and 5,362,000 in 1930. The number is estimated to increase to 5,428,000 next year. A decrease will begin in 1934 and the corresponding estimate is, approximately, 5,175,000 in 1935, falling by degrees to, approximately, 4,680,000 in 1940.

Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: May I ask whether, in view of the estimated decline in the number of children attending school in the next few years, the Board of Education still think it desirable to go on with their programme of spending £10,000,000 on new school buildings?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: The figures I have given are well known to authorities administering education, and, in point of fact, there has been a great decrease in the capital expenditure sanctioned this year as compared with previous years.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Is it not the case that in many areas there are still schools in which there are 60 children in a class? Does not my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary think that money spent on education is more or less wasted if we have such large classes as these?

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT.

Mr. LYONS: 59.
asked the Home Secretary the places in which cinematograph theatres have been, or are proposed to be, opened on Sundays where all or some of the regular staff worked, or are to work, gratuitously; and whether, as such seven days' continuous engagement at work is an evasion of the safeguards in the Act, he will introduce an amending measure to give effect to the security against a seven-day working week?

Mr. STANLEY: The only occasion on which, so far as I am aware, any arrangement of this kind has been, or is proposed to be, adopted is that at Birmingham to which my right hon. Friend referred in the reply which he gave on
Monday last to the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies). Some misapprehension appears to have arisen in this matter, and I should like (with the permission of the House) to take this opportunity of explaining the position rather more fully. The arrangement adopted at Birmingham related, not to the opening of cinemas on all Sundays throughout the year, but to the performances given in Birmingham cinemas on a single Sunday in the year known locally as the "Cinema Hospital Sunday." On this one Sunday in the year it has been the practice for many years past for all the Birmingham cinemas to open, and to hand over to the local hospitals, not merely their profits, but the whole of their takings for that day. All the services in connection with these performances have been given voluntarily, the cinema proprietors lending the cinemas and the films, and the employés performing their ordinary duties on a voluntary basis without remuneration.
My right hon. Friend's advisers at the Home Office took the view that in these quite exceptional circumstances no element of a contract of service seemed to be present and that the gratuitous and voluntary services of the employés on this occasion did not appear to constitute "employment" within the meaning of section 1 (1) of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932. This view was communicated to the licensing authority at Birmingham, and on the 16th October last the cinemas in Birmingham were opened for their "Cinema Hospital Sunday" performances on the same basis as they have opened on this annual occasion for many years past. The arrangement was made possible only by the exceptional circumstances in which these performances have been given. Where cinemas are to open regularly on Sundays the position is altogether different, and there can be no question of applying to regular Sunday opening any arrangement of this kind by which the staff would give their services gratuitously on the seventh day of every week. The safeguards provided in the Act are fully sufficient to prevent any person employed in a cinema which opens regularly on Sundays from being continuously engaged at work for seven days a week, and no amending legislation is necessary for this purpose.

Mr. LYONS: I thank the Under-Secretary for the information which he has
given clarifying this important point. May I ask him whether in the circular which has been issued to local authorities the point of his answer has been made manifest?

Mr. STANLEY: I do not know to what circular the hon. Member refers. The advice to which I have referred is not contained in any circular but in a letter to the Birmingham authorities dealing with this specific case.

Mr. LYONS: I understand that a. circular on the working of the Act has been issued to local authorities. In any further circular that may be issued, may I ask that the information which my hon. Friend has given to the House will be embodied?

Mr. STANLEY: Perhaps the publicity given to the matter this afternoon will be sufficient.

Mr. REA: May I ask whether facilities will be given to other local authorities for charitable purposes in similar circumstances?

Mr. STANLEY: It is not a question of giving facilities but of interpreting the Act passed by this House.

Sir BASIL PETO: May I ask whether the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown was taken as to whether in this particular case of Birmingham the conditions constitute a contract of service?

Mr. STANLEY: I think I have made it quite clear in my answer that the advice was given on the authority of the Home Office. It is, of course, open to anyone to test the correctness of the decision in the courts.

Sir B. PETO: May I ask whether actually the Law Officers of the Crown were consulted on this point?

Mr. STANLEY: It is not the practice to say whether the Law Officers of the Crown were consulted. The advice given to Birmingham was given, not after consultation with the Law Officers of the Crown, but on the advice of the Home Office.

Mr. CAPORN: Before the Under-Secretary gives similar advice to other local authorities, will he consult the Law Officers of the Crown?

Sir B. PETO: 62.
asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the report of the entertainments committee of the London County Council in favour of permitting cinematograph performances in London to commence at 3.30 p.m. on Sundays as a regular commercial practice; and whether he intends to introduce legislation to amend the Sunday Entertainments Act so as to limit Sunday cinematograph performances to five hours?

Mr. STANLEY: I have seen reports in the Press that the Entertainments (Licensing) Committee of the London County Council have made recommendations to this effect, but I would remind the hon. Baronet that these recommendations have not yet been considered by the full Council. When proposals to limit the hours of Sunday opening were under discussion in this House the London County Council pressed for their rejection on the ground that their acceptance would bring to an end the Sunday afternoon performances given by film societies and the occasional afternoon performances organised on behalf of particular charities. The London County Council did not at that time give any indication that they contemplated allowing cinemas to open on Sunday afternoons on an ordinary commercial basis; and, indeed, the commercial opening which the Entertainments Committee have now recommended would appear to preclude the continuance of those non-commercial performances. As regards the second part of the question, my right hon. Friend does not contemplate introducing any amending legislation until further experience of the working of the Act has shown the necessity for it.

Sir B. PETO: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that amending legislation should be introduced if the understanding that the opening of cinemas on Sunday should be limited to the later hours of 6 to 11 is not to be adhered to and it becomes a general practice to open for a much longer period on Sunday afternoons?

Earl WINTERTON: Is the Under-Secretary aware that there was no understanding on that point? The understanding was that local authorities should have the full right to open cinemas on Sundays during the hours that they desired.

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS, HORNSEY.

Sir PERCY HURD: 60.
asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the recent municipal elections in Hornsey, when one candidate, who obtained an insignificant number of votes and who has already cost the ratepayers £1,000 by similar candidatures, now stood for three wards in the borough; and whether he will bring in a Bill or give facilities for a Bill to prevent this waste of public money by restricting a candidate to one ward in an election?

Mr. STANLEY: I understand that the question of a candidate standing for more than one ward at a municipal election is one of the questions under review by the Departmental Committee appointed to consider the consolidation and amendment of the enactments relating to local government, and my right hon. Friend thinks it is desirable to await the outcome of this committee's examination of the subject before considering the question of legislation.

Sir P. HURD: When may we expect the committee to make its report?

Mr. STANLEY: My hon. Friend should put that question to the Minister of Health.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is my hon. Friend aware that a Bill dealing with this point received a First Reading in this House by a large majority before the Adjournment and is now awaiting a Second Reading? Will the Government give facilities for the further stages of the Bill?

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

LONDON OMNIBUSES (ROUTE INDICATORS).

Sir P. HURD: 63.
asked the Home Secretary whether the London General Omnibus Company have complied with the police requirement, conveyed to them in July, 1931, that the route of each omnibus must be displayed in large type at the back of the omnibus; whether he is aware of the public inconvenience caused unless the leading stopping places are also indicated, as in the case of the older vehicles; and whether he will direct the company to meet this public need without further delay?

Mr. STANLEY: The arrangement was that the route numbers and destination
points should be clearly indicated on the nearside and on the rear of double-deck omnibuses of the enclosed staircase type, and that, as far as practicable, intermediate route points or thoroughfares traversed should be displayed as well and that all double-deck omnibuses, whatever their type, should show particulars of these. The company have been unable to complete this programme, which is one involving them in very heavy expense, but considerable progress has been made and it is hoped to have all the omnibuses fitted by the end of the year.

Sir P. HURD: Is it not also desirable that omnibuses should indicate not only the route but also the stopping places as well? Will not the Home Office take the view of the public convenience in this matter?

Mr. STANLEY: As far as practicable intermediate points and thoroughfares will be indicated.

Sir P. HURD: Is my hon. Friend aware that that is not being done at the moment?

MOTOR TAXATION.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: 65.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that it has been calculated that a reduction of the horse-power tax on motor-cars by one-half would mean such an increase of employment that the loss of revenue would be more than compensated by the relief of unemployment; and whether he will consider the proposal?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I have not seen the calculation; nor do I know upon what hypothesis it is based.

Mr. GRENFELL: Has the Financial Secretary read a report of the speech made by the Chairman of Singers in which he elaborated this proposal? Will he accept a copy of that speech?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I shall be glad to accept any gift from my hon. Friend.

REGULATIONS.

Mr. BURNETT: 67.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he will arrange for the codification of the regulations issued under the Road Traffic Act and for their publication in a single volume for the convenience of the authorities administering them?

Lieut.-Colonel HEAOLAM: It is the intention, so soon as pressure of other work permits, to consolidate the various regulations where that can conveniently be done and to issue them in a compact form, as the hon. Member desires.

WATERLOO BRIDGE (GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE).

Sir W. DAVISON: 68.
asked the Minister of Transport whether the Ministry of Transport will be prepared to pay the same percentage of the smaller cost involved in the reconditioning of Waterloo Bridge as they had agreed to pay in respect of the larger scheme, which was rejected by Parliament, for the pulling down and rebuilding of the bridge; and whether this has been communicated to the London County Council?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: It would not be opportune for me to make any statement until the London County Council have had an opportunity of considering and discussing with the Minister the report of their consulting engineer, but my hon. Friend gave the House an undertaking in the course of the Debate on the London County Council Money Bill that there could be no question of giving financial aid to a scheme to which the House had declared itself opposed.

Sir W. DAVISON: But in view of the very unmistakeable opinion expressed by the House, that the present Waterloo Bridge should be reconditioned and not pulled down, surely the Ministry are prepared to inform the county council that they will give a similar percentage to the lower cost of reconditioning the bridge to that which they were prepared to give for pulling down and rebuilding the bridge?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I have said that we are perfectly willing and anxious to discuss the matter with the county council when the time arrives.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is that so, because the county council are discussing the matter on the basis that the Ministry have not offered to give the same facilities for a reconditioned bridge as for the pulling down and rebuilding of the bridge?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I cannot answer for what the county council are doing, of course.

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCE.

Mr. LEVY: 45.
asked the Prime Minister if he can now give any details of the time, place, and scope of the World Economic Conference, and the countries which will take part in it?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) on the 18th October, to which at present I have nothing to add.

Mr. THORNE: Is there any truth in the statement reported that the Preparatory Committee are not prepared to issue their report until January?

The PRIME MINISTER: I have no official information on that point.

Orders of the Day — UNEMPLOYMENT.

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [4th November],
That this House views with concern the present volume of unemployment, and will welcome all proper measures for dealing with it."—[Mr. Lansbury.]

Question again proposed.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): I believe there will be general assent in all parts of the House that the Debate which opened on Friday was a very profitable one indeed, and if during to-day and to-morrow the same desire is shown to contribute to a common pool of suggestions, the three days spent in discussing this subject will be very well spent time. We have been met right away with two types of suggestions, one having the feature of public works for unemployment relief, and the other, which seems to me to be more constructive and more profitable, of efforts to organise, perhaps very largely by the Government, perhaps stimulated by the Government but by no means Government efforts, and to develop the resources of this country, to open out foreign markets, and to deal with unemployment by the direct and creative method of providing employment of a normal and economic kind.
On the first class of suggestion I would like to take the opportunity straight away, although as a matter of fact it comes better under the second class, of saying that I regret exceedingly that the newspapers this morning have made an announcement regarding the Cunard Company, for which, alas, after spending a very considerable time this morning, I can find no reason. I have inquired quite privately of certain friends of my own who are responsible for newspapers, and I have been assured that they did not publish this announcement as what is commonly known as a newspaper stunt, that the information came to them in such a way as to make it quite impossible for them to reject it, and that publication was absolutely blameless. But unfortunately after all the inquiries I have made, I must inform the House, and I do it immediately, and the public outside, that I have been unable to discover any ground for the statement that has been published. I think it a very hard
thing that for thousands of expectant people a hope like that should have been raised and almost immediately dashed to the ground. It is one of those acts which, if it could be traced with definiteness to its origin, ought not to be allowed to pass without some kind of action.
Now as regards the first type of the proposals which are featured, public works on a very large scale for the purpose of alleviating unemployment, I hope all sides of the House will very carefully consider past experience. I believe there is no body of men who entered with more energy of mind and more determination than did my late colleagues to use this to its very utmost extent. In any event no Government of this country provided for more schemes of work of that kind and put behind the schemes more public assistance, both Exchequer and local, than did the Labour Government. They worked hard—[Interruption.] Yes they did; they worked energetically, and they did not depend upon themselves alone for advice. They went to leading business men, they went to economists, they went to every sort of authority in order to be guided as regards the schemes which they produced and the way in which those schemes were to be conducted. But I believe that they will agree with me—and we are not talking party now and I hope we shall not do so during the whole of this Debate—that when it was all done, they were very disappointed, just as I was, with the results.
At the present moment any proposal to revive those schemes to any considerable extent must be confined and must be regulated by this overriding test: that the national income is not yet in a position, and for the moment there is very little prospect of it being put into a position, in which it can spend extravagantly upon schemes, the permanent nature of which is very doubtful. That is the overriding test and whoever would come here and sit on this bench, charged with the full consideration of every proposal made during this Debate, would have to begin by recognising that fact and would have to cut his coat according to the cloth provided by the national income. There is another consideration which is common to all Governments, and which does not depend upon the will of the Government, or the heart of the Government, or the head of
the Government. That consideration is that, try as a Government may, spend as it cares to do, not only income but even capital, the standard of life cannot be maintained beyond the point at which the national income will allow it to be fixed.
Therefore, if we are to face this problem honestly we have to take both these things into consideration, and the reference which I have made to expectations regarding the building of these two Cunarders, is equally sound when applied to promises made in a general way which no Government can fulfil for arty length of time without destroying the credit of the country. The big scheme of temporary work can only be justified on one assumption and that is that what the country is suffering from is the old-fashioned trade depression—the trade depression which comes to the best and the richest of countries from time to time, on account of the slackening or clogging of the mechanism of production and exchange. In that case the justification can he put up that during those slack years, during the years when the curve of employment goes down, it is sound economy to keep men at work; it is sound economy, even to draw to a certain extent upon capital, because, as soon as the curve begins to go up, then the expenditure which has been undertaken during the waiting years will be more than recouped during the busy years and the nation will be very much benefited by that expenditure.
I do not think, however, that many of us can regard this depression as merely a pause in industrial activities of the old character. What we have to face now are new historical economic conditions. The War and still more the economic terms of peace have presented industry and the industrialists of this country, employers, workmen, managers, all alike, with new problems in the use of British resources, in the production of goods from those resources, in finding new markets, and, then, when all that has been done, with a certain population to which I will refer in a moment, with a certain group of population who are going to require completely new treatment in order to be put upon their feet afresh, because they will never be absorbed in the ordinary large industrial operations of the country.
We have to consider, moreover, that when my hon. Friends opposite and I started last time to undertake this expenditure in order to relieve labour it was roughly assumed, and it was a very good and proved assumption, that for every £1,000,000 spent we directly and indirectly put into work something like 4,000 men. [HON. MEMBERS: "5,000!"] I do not think we got quite to 5,000, and I want to be conservative in my figures rather than to exaggerate. I repeat what I have said—4,000 men. As a matter of fact, it was just over 4,000 when we started. A sum of £1,000,000 was always assumed to put 4,000 men into work, during the expenditure of the £1,000,000. That, I think, is the accurate way of putting it. It might have been for a year, or it might have been for half a year. But during the operation of our work this figure of 4,000 plus came down steadily to 4,000, then to 3,900, then to 3,800, and so on. What happened was that these works were themselves being reorganised and mechanised until their use as labour-employing works became less and less, and I believe that to-day the number of men employed per £1,000,000 spent, is less than it has ever been before.
There is another observation that I have to make—and nobody knows the truth of it better than my hon. Friends opposite who represent very progressive municipalities. The municipality that anticipated its work, the municipality that made work, the municipality that expanded its needs in order to enable those lean years to be passed over, has now exhausted its resources. It has exhausted not only its financial resources but also its resources for finding employment and any new outburst of that type of work and that type of expenditure is going to find more difficulties to-day than it found five or four or three years ago.
Therefore, I think the most profitable way in which we can exercise our minds and our ingenuity is to find out if we can—it is one of the most difficult problems in the world—how we can stimulate trade so that the demand for labour will be a natural demand. That is the only hope that we can hold out for the unemployed. If I could get up here and sincerely say to the House, "I believe this is going to be over in 12 months," or if I could give any date when the country would right itself, like a boat that had been struck by a storm,
it would be very hard for anybody then to refuse another experiment in this kind of work; but honestly I cannot say it. I believe that what we have to do now—and I wish everybody in this House, irrespective of whether he sits here or there, would join in a real, honest, co-operative effort—is to survey the whole possibilities of British trade, the whole of the economic possibilities of this country, and take as swift and as effective steps as we possibly can to right the ship in relation to the new waters and the new weather which it has to face.
I, therefore, have always placed the greatest hope upon the International Economic Conference, because, although this country may have suffered in this way and that way as an individual economic unit, the real trouble of this country is that it is part and parcel of a world, the whole of which has been struck—using the expression of the right hon. Gentleman, who, I regret to say, is not able to be with us to-day—by an economic blizzard; and until that is got over, until the markets of the world have been opened up, until the production of the world has been regularised and enabled to flow down of its own momentum through ordinary channels, the problem of unemployment will remain with us as a very serious and a heavy problem indeed. So, the problem being found international, I place great reliance, great hopes, upon the International Economic Conference, which was arranged to follow very quickly, as quickly as possible, after Lausanne. Lausanne was a necessary introduction. When the question of Reparations was settled, although it could only be settled conditionally, because America found itself unable to participate with us in our deliberations at Lausanne, that having been done, the next step, and the great step, was the International Economic Conference.
I was asked by my hon. Friend opposite at Question Time to-day whether I had any information about postponing the International Conference until, I think he said, January; at any rate, if the Preparatory Committee had postponed its work until January. I said that I had no official information as to dates or anything of that kind. I have seen something in the newspapers, but I want to assure this House that the
British Government would be no party to postponements. I had an idea, after consulting with Ministers, of foreign States when the Lausanne Conference finished, that we should have the conference sufficiently long before Christmas to have the general speeches addressed. Hon. Members know that the opening of these conferences always takes place with a number of general exploratory speeches and that immediately afterwards the details are all worked out. That happens generally, and the duty of the chairman is to keep his eye upon the big questions that are being raised, to take note of them, and to consider in the interval how they are to be handled. If he thinks that they ought to be referred to a committee or committees, he turns over in his mind what would be the best committees to appoint for the purpose; and I hope—and I have the consent of some very influential colleagues at Lausanne—that after the general speeches are made, the committees may be appointed, the agenda of special subjects and separate topics can be made out, and the committees can follow; that each shall be appointed, and then that we may rise for Christmas and get the work pushed ahead as quickly as we possibly could.
The idea that we can go about this business in a leisurely sort of way with every country in the world depending upon the success of the conference, one nation in one way and another nation in another! There is the fact staring everybody stark in the face that until we can get to the foundations, about exchanges of goods in all their various ramifications and complexities, there is very little hope for a return of a really healthy international trade, and without a return of a healthy international trade there is very little hope for a return of real prosperity to any European State. Anyone who sees that that is the issue, the real issue, that the International Economic Conference has to face, and then goes and talks about the spring, talks about the early summer—the strongest censure that can be passed upon that frame of mind ought to be passed upon it. I think I have said enough to show that, so far as the British Government are concerned, they are going to be no party to unnecessary delays such as have been indicated.
4.0 p.m.
If we come to the conclusion that we must place more emphasis upon con-
structive and creative work dealing with unemployment, then one of two things follows. We must make a close examination, a much closer examination than we have made hitherto, as to the nature of the mass of the unemployed. They must be divided into sections and sub-sections. If we are going to produce a really creative system and policy of working, the unemployed have to he more carefully analysed and divided into their proper positions. There are, for instance, the unemployed who are still in insurance. There is the whole question of insurance itself. I have not had time to read the report of the Royal Commission that reached me some time on Saturday, but I see that they have raised the question of who ought to be insured. I am not going to express any opinion about it just now, but that question has to be answered. There are, for instance, the agricultural labourers. They are not insured now. Is it fair that agricultural labourers—and there are other groups, too—should be deprived of insurance, more particularly if you are to give subsequently special treatment for people who have been insured? Suppose, for instance, transition benefits or transition payments are to be paid, why should the town workman who has been insured, after he has exhausted his insurance rights receive benefits that the agricultural labourer who has not been insured cannot receive? Why should one group of people be protected from Poor Law while the other group of people has no resort at all except the Poor Law when falling into distress? That is a typical example of the problem which must be faced and a definite answer given to it as soon as we begin to discuss and consider unemployment, not as a temporary experience of a slack period, but as a problem which requires some constructive work, and that will be done.
Then, as I said about the provision of work, anticipation by public authorities obviously cannot now help us. Anticipation is justified only when you are perfectly certain that before the work which has been anticipated has been finished, a new boom of trade will be upon us, and we can follow anticipation of public work by slackness of public work, so that at the end of a year or so the ordinary normal requirements of
public work will be restored. We cannot assume that now to be the case. There is another point. Public work meant to relieve unemployment cannot have, or ought not, I think, to have this result, that you put, say, a body of men on a road this year and when that road is finished you put them on to another road devised for precisely the same purpose, and when that is finished they go on to a third one. That is not relieving unemployment. That is not dealing with the national and social problem of unemployment. Unemployment, if it is to be eliminated, has to be eliminated by a process of work which is steady, which is organised, which takes for its employment a regular body of men who are expected to do it as their occupation. It is one of the most essential conditions, if our unemployed workmen are to have work provided for them, that that work is not going to be simply a continuing and fruitless effort to do nothing except relieve individual distress; and if that individual distress has got to be relieved for years, and years and years, then we may be doing something which is good, we may be doing something which is good to the individual, we may be doing something which is humane, we may be doing something which is forced upon us to do, but do not let us pride ourselves that we have found any solution of the real problem of continuing unemployment.
Then there is the question how wide should insurance be, how far can insurance be used especially to meet what is admittedly temporary unemployment which will exist under the very best organisation that can be devised. There will be temporary insurance, and everybody in it can have a 99 per cent. chance in due course of going back to their employment and being absorbed in it. That is the function of insurance. But then what are we going to do with the great number of people to-day who, I think, we will all agree are not likely to be absorbed by new industry for, at any rate, a very considerable time? There is a much more saddening aspect than that in that large section or group of people, and it is this. There are boys and girls coming out of school. There is no industrial training open for them in the ordinary normal way. They drift. They have had no industrial discipline—I mean the discipline we are all glad we
have had, being bound to work whether we like it or not, doing it through a reasonable and normal period of the day. They then drift until they become the able-bodied unemployed, and they drift onwards from that into old age.
What is going to be done with them? I speak here to-day as everybody does. I give no pledges, and I do not speak for the Government. We are doing little more in these three days than undergoing the very profitable exercise of thinking aloud. Surely there will be a combined effort from every side of the House to keep that section of people away from Poor Law relief. Schemes must be devised, policies must be devised if it is humanly possible to take that section and to regard them not as wastrels, not as hopeless people, but as people for whom occupation must be provided somehow or other, and that occupation, although it may not be in the regular factory or in organised large-scale industrial groups, nevertheless will be quite as effective for themselves mentally, morally, spiritually and physically than, perhaps, if they were included in this enormous mechanism of humanity which is not always producing the best result, and which, to a very large extent, fails in producing the good results that so many of us expect to see from a higher civilisation based upon national wealth. That is a problem that has got to be faced. Again I speak for myself when I say that in any great creative scheme—I am not thinking of stop-gap schemes to put men and women to work for a year; I am thinking of something that is going to be permanent, something that is going to be absorbed into the great organic unity of our social life—anything that can be done to get a practical and workable scheme for this purpose, I shall certainly individually do my best to help on.
I am convinced that land must play a very much greater part than it has been playing in all the schemes that have been produced up to now. I know that it has been a very expensive experiment up to now—very, very expensive, but every year brings new experiences. I should think that for every experiment that was successful, say, 10 years ago, we have had a dozen that have been successful now, and not only the act of experiment but new methods of handling the thing
have been devised. I am perfectly convinced, in my experience, that purely red-tape organisation will never do what we want to do, and that we must enlist, stimulate and help, in so far as help can be given, voluntary organisations to get the work done, for instance, by a society to which I do not believe this generation can ever pay adequate tribute—I mean the Society of Friends. The devoted members of that society have been doing magnificent work as social workers in a thousand and one ways—Red Cross in its most admirable and most generous form. I believe that if we are to begin to do anything, we must throw open the way, that we must cut a good deal of red-tape, and, without in any way slackening in the watchfulness of our administration, nevertheless show an elasticity which up to now it has been almost impossible to show. I believe that no Government is in a better position to do that than a National Government. Here, standing together, we can, whether popular or unpopular, if necessary, go a pretty long way, knowing that in the end we shall come out right, that the State will come out right, and that the experiments will be a permanent contribution to national wealth and national welfare.
On the question of agriculture to which that brings me, I have very little to say, but my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Agriculture will speak later in the evening, and I hope that he will be able to say something which will advance some of our immediate problems a little farther than has been possible up to now. Agriculture must be an essential feature of our national industry. May I beg those who are specially interested in agriculture and specially charged with agricultural interests to remember that agriculture itself must contribute to its own redemption. The sort of idea that, whenever agriculture gets into trouble it can simply come and ask for a tariff, is absolutely impossible of acceptation to the whole of the community and is very bad for agriculture itself. I think that agriculture can be put on its feet, but it must not seriously damage industrial exports in order to remove from its own fireside some of its economic problems. The Government, I can assure the agriculturist members, are busy devising ways and means. We have such things as tariffs, which we have already granted where they were
necessary. They will be kept on, and they will be adapted to other points as soon as it is necessary or as soon as a case is made out. Nobody need have any doubts about that, but the one thing which I want to emphasise is that, while that may be done, agriculture all the time must prove that it is using the tariffs to advance itself, its efficiency, its power, its marketing machinery, and so on, so that it may not always be pointed to, as is too often now the case, as a department in our industrial life that requires assistance which the industrialists do not require.

Mr. LAMBERT: What about iron and steel?

The PRIME MINISTER: That has been pointed to again and again, and nobody knows better than my right hon. Friend that up till now the great difficulty for anybody running an agricultural policy which involves an increase of wholesale prices has been the difficulty of getting the towns to see the agriculturists' point of view and to march side by side with the agriculturists. I believe that that can be done now. I may be saying something that may easily be misunderstood by some when I say that agriculture must show that it is using its opportunities and its own initiative for its own improvement, and is regarding tariffs as opportunities rather than as ends in themselves. I am sure, however, that if once we can persuade the whole population that that is being done, the case of agriculture and the settlement of the agricultural problem will be comparatively easy. If I dealt with this question further now, I could not go so far as my right hon. and gallant Friend will be able to go later this evening.
This is going to be a very hard winter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members opposite must not tell others or persuade themselves that there is any monopoly on their part of that knowledge, Or of sympathy arising from that knowledge, or of determination to do work on that knowledge, and that these feelings are not shared by other people. If we come forward at the moment with no great ready-made schemes, at the very worst we are in no worse position than those who come forward with schemes that have been tried again and again and in their operation have proved that they make no contribution to the problem.
Our schemes are schemes that will increase the efficiency of British work, that will open markets for Great Britain, and that will increase opportunities for the normal employment of British labour. I suppose that hon. Members opposite will say that the action of the Government to which I am about to refer is only an imitation of what they themselves did. That being so, they will not object to it, and they will consider it as being efficacious. The Government are in contact once again with the very best men and the very best advice they can get as to how to turn those ideas into practical schemes, and to set them working at the earliest possible moment.
There is, for instance, the question of hydrogenation. I only give this as an illustration, for there is nothing cheaper and more delusive than the production of great schemes of work. During the last 12 months, I am informed on very careful inquiry as to how the matter stands and what its prospects are, very considerable advance has been made in hydrogenation. The position of the market, moreover, gives better chances for the production of petrol from coal at prices that are economic. The Government must keep that in band. They are in touch with it and working at it, and it is being pushed as hard as it possibly can he. There is also the question of the existence of slums and in conformity with our financial limitations I believe that a good deal of work can be done there. Some of it has been done with good results and with thanks from those who have received the assistance and the stimulation. We have the question of slums and the question of houses. I am not bringing forward a scheme, and I do not want to appear in false colours to the House, but I am, I hope, assuring the House that at these points of importance, these points of real interest and of vital necessity to the country, the Government are working at the present moment. As the weeks go on, no doubt, we shall be able to make statements as to what the results are.
Again, do not let anyone imagine that, after this thinking aloud on my part, questions may be put down to-morrow and the day after asking what the progress has been. Everyone who has been at this kind of work knows that progress lags, but that, as long as the push is behind it, the moment comes when the results appear almost instantaneously.
That is the method which we are going to follow. It is not a dramatic method, but it will do for those places where hard work is being done, where the actual problems of unemployment are being thought out, where the contacts are being made between the Government and the business men and business houses, where views are being hammered out for effectively dealing with the unemployment situation as we now find it. That work, I can assure the House, will be continued steadily, faithfully and consistently.
I would appeal to the great outside authorities and outside organisations that are wanting work to be done, and to people in a position to give work, to offer a real generous helping hand; I appeal to mayors, chairmen of urban district councils, and so on, to do something to organise work, kindly help, personal help, generous help, so that these people, flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood, who have to face this very hard and forbidding winter, may have some comfort of hope and heart to tide them over the hard economic days. I have spoken very generally, but only in that way can I indicate to the country what the Departments of the Government are engaged in, what the co-operating Departments of the Government are doing, and what the Government are doing in connection with outside authorities—religious on the one hand, and hard business authorities on the other—in order to tide over these difficulties, not as a temporary affair, but in order to put something well rooted into the social life of this country, to enable us to say that unemployment as we now know it was a very dark shadow that lay over the past but no longer exists.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. ARTHUR GREENWOOD: I think the House has welcomed the Prime Minister's speech, though for my own part I could have wished that it had been more specific in character and less general. As I understood it, we were to bring forward practical proposals, and I confess to a sense of disappointment that, so far, we have not had them either from the Prime Minister or the Minister of Labour. I and my hon. Friends take the view that unemployment is inherent in the system under which we live, and I believe the Prime Minister does too. Before the war Sir William Beveridge,
as he now is, called it a problem of industry; it was no longer a question of individual shortcomings, but a defect of our economic organisation. The Prime Minister says this afternoon that there is a new problem. I should prefer to say there is an intensification of the old problem. The old problem still remains, but folly, short-sightedness and human inability to see the future during and after the war have made the problem infinitely worse than it was. However difficult this problem may he to solve, there is no difficulty in stating what the problem is. Industry exists for only one purpose, and that is the satisfaction of human needs. It has no other justification. Hitherto, in spite of its increasing productivity, it has failed to satisfy human needs as fully as that productivity would permit. It is breaking down, but it is not an insoluble problem. It is not one that surpasses all human ingenuity and understanding. If men produce in order that they may live, and are willing to produce, then surely the means ought to be provided to give them the living they seek.
But now, as we see it, the system is breaking down, and the position will have to be faced sooner or later. We would prefer that it should be faced sooner rather than later. We have seen in the last few years a catastrophic collapse of the machinery of money, currency and exchange transactions, which have been the method by which trade has been carried on. Everybody is now saying—everybody; I do not believe there is any exception in this House—that what we want as a primary need for the restoration of trade is stability of values. Everybody is agreed about that, and yet year after year we are permitting the incompetence that lies somewhere inside this machine to continue. I should hope the Government will give early attention to this matter. It may be that there is a multitude of counsellors who do not agree how to reach the end of stability in values, but there is no reason why, faced with this tremendous and overwhelming problem, practical men should not find a practical solution, even if every economist in the country did not agree with it.
On the other hand, we have to deal with the means of production. The Minister of Labour on Friday outlined a
good many of the things which have been done at one time or another since the war, but they were odds and ends of schemes, sometimes initiated half-heartedly and continued half-heartedly, and then drew the conclusion that all schemes of that kind are useless. He gave us a very clear analysis of what the position was, but, for the rest of his speech, he said that he did not believe in public works and neither did the Government, and this wail, if I may so express it, has been carried on by the Prime Minister. But even if the Government do not agree with works of public development, there is no reason for shutting down the normal work of local authorities as has been done during the past 12 months. They are not grandiose schemes from which nothing is to be obtained. As regards other works, I believe that the vast proportion of the £700,000,000 which was spent—it looks an enormous sum, though it is small compared with what we spent in other ways during the same period—was well spent.
I would urge upon the Government the importance of undertaking more emergency schemes of the character adopted before the days of the late Labour Government and during the days of the Labour Government. I draw a distinction between the old type of relief work, which was just as good as digging a hole and filling it up again, and the works we have in mind. The vast majority of works put in hand when we were in office were works of public usefulness, works of real development which had either an immediate or prospective economic value, or, on the other hand, a high social value, and the expenditure on those schemes can be justified on both economic and social grounds. It is impossible to draw out a balance sheet of the £700,000,000 spent on public works, but it provided a very considerable volume of wage-earning employment. I have never said that public schemes would cure unemployment—never; but there has been as a result of them a very considerable amount of wage-earning employment which, though temporary in character, has menat also a temporary lightening of the clouds overhanging hundreds of thousands of working-class homes, and having a value which mere pounds, shillings and pence cannot possibly measure. There is no money in that, but it had an enormous psychologi-
cal value for people who got a few months' work which they had not expected and whose outlook had been hopeless.
But there is an economic side. It is not as though, having undertaken these works, we have then destroyed them. I do not say the country has £700,000,000 worth of new permanent assets or semi-permanent assets, but it has something approaching £700,000,000 worth, some value from which, economic and social, has already accrued to the community since they were completed, and their value will continue to accrue. Even part of the cost has already been paid off in some cases, and other schemes are actually revenue-producing schemes. All these things must be set on one side of the picture against this gloomy total of £700,000,000, which is mentioned with the implication that it has all been spent foolishly. Further, I cannot agree with the statement of the Prime Minister that these schemes have now become exhausted, that local authorities have no more schemes of a practical, valuable kind which can be put into operation. I could refer him to large provincial centres like Manchester and Leeds as places where large numbers of people have been refused work which they might have had on schemes which normally would have been put in hand.
I believe that the present is a time for far more public development than ever we had before. Whatever may be said about certain odds and ends of schemes of work which have been put into operation during the last few years, there still remains a large amount of work crying out to be done, not merely in the towns but in the rural areas as well. Month after month we hear of serious flooding, although we have an instrument, created during the time of the late Labour Government, the Land Drainage Act, to deal with that specific problem. So far as I know nothing is being done with that problem. The land affected is not water-logged land that never would be any good, but land which is subject to periodical flooding because land drainage has never been undertaken on the drainage board scale.
Then there is work to do in housing. I cannot see what other legislation the Prime Minister wants. I think he has
got all that is needed if he wishes to deal with the problem. The present is a favourable time, because if schemes of development are inaugurated to-day loans can be floated on a market very different from the market in the years from 1929 to 1931. In the case of housing a reduction of 1½ per cent. in interest rates may make a difference of anything from half-a-crown to 4s. a week in rents. Even if the reduction of interest were less than that, there would be a substantial saving. Then, building costs are lower now than they have been for years, and money is cheaper than it has been for years.

Mr. HOWARD: Thanks to economy.

Mr. GREENWOOD: I am not trying to make a party political speech. The hon. Member can have all the credit for that if he likes. I am dealing with the fact that money is cheaper than it has been for years. There are also more idle people in the building trade. That being the situation, there is no reason for the Government's policy, first, of restricting housebuilding, so that the number of houses under construction is falling each month, and second, their attempt to cramp the houses and to curtail not merely size but amenities. Of the need for houses there is not the slightest doubt, and there are opportunities to do something on a big scale.
I come to what in my view is much more important if we are to deal with this problem of unemployment. I do not regard public works as a solution, though they are an emergency contribution which ought to be made in a time like this, and which give public authorities and semi-public authorities assets of great value to them in times of reviving trade. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour said that what we want is to restore trade. That platitude has been uttered ever since 1920. We all know that that is the problem, and we on this side feel as much concerned as hon. Members opposite to bring about the restoration of normal industry and commerce. The question is how that is to be done. I understand that we shall hear something presently about agriculture. That is an industry which I put on the same footing, although with a little more emphasis, as other industries. Those industries on which our economic position
depends to-day are, broadly speaking, inadequately equipped and organised to carry their responsibility. On that, there cannot be much doubt. There may be doubt as to the solution, or as to the ultimate solution; indeed, I am sure that there will be more than that. There will be difference. Of the facts there can be no doubt. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking on Friday, at the dinner of the Birmingham and District Society of Chartered Accountants, used these words:
While our own manufacturers in their enterprise and ingenuity fear no comparison with those of any other country, I am bound to say that in this important field or organisation, the organisation of production and the organisation of markets, they have still a great deal of leeway to make up. In our basic industries, iron, steel and shipbuilding, and in the textile trades, there is very little record in the way of organisation in recent years… I think the time has now come to make an advance.
No one can deny that those industries need reorganisation. We are faced with a far more difficult problem than we were when industry was normal 18 years ago, before the War. They need reorganisation on a very considerable scale. The Chancellor's suggestion is merely an appeal to those people to do something. I put it to the House that since the War they have had ample time to do it, and that they have not done it. I have seen something of the abortive attempts that have been made, in industry after industry, to bring people together to agree. In our view, the situation is so serious now that we cannot leave it to the voluntary action of people who will never learn to come together, and who invariably put trade interests before national interests and who, while they magnify their own difficulties, do not assist to the full in solving the difficulties through which the nation is passing.
I think that this reorganisation, more disciplined industries, less freedom for the individual to break away from understandings and agreements and an industrial policy, are very important. Organisation is more necessary in the big basic industries than in any other. That it can be done is shown by Imperial Chemical Industries. I hold no brief for that method of organisation, but in that case a disorganised industry has, in less than 10 years, been made one of the most remarkable pieces of our economic organisation. With more safeguards for the
people employed, I would prefer that to the kind of recklessness which has prevailed in many industries during a time of economic crisis. I see no way out of industrial reorganisation except through the direct intervention of Government, as though this were war time. If there were war, industries would not be allowed to hold committees for years and at the end to show no result. Something would have to he done. For 15 months, not merely of not encouraging schemes of development but of actually discouraging schemes, we have been running on a policy of leaving industries internally alone. Whatever may be said about tariffs, and the help which these extraneous aids may bring to industry, internal reorganisation is infinitely more important. With that I would put, of course, the reorganisation of markets.
I submit that a negative policy will not do. This ship, to which the Prime Minister refers, is not going to right itself. We have arrived at so grave an economic situation in Europe and the world, that it is impossible to hope, and no reasonable man dare hope, that this ship will right itself. It may be that we shall have to change the ship before we have finished, but certainly the ship is not going to right itself. It can only be righted by a proper system of navigation and by proper direction. I hope that the Government will see that. They claim as a National Government to have an authority much greater than that of any mere party. They alone can interfere with the petty interests of individuals, and in a way that a party Government would find very difficult. I submit that it is hopeless for those in the great derelict areas, for people in the shipyards, in the mines and in the idle factories, if it is to go forth that there is nothing for them but vague words this winter, and schemes that are going to materialise sometime soon.
I hope that we shall get support for a policy of schemes of public development. Scores of hon. Members know quite well the plight of their own local authorities, and they know the needs of their local authorities. I am not speaking of those that are completely derelict. Many areas would be willing to extend their works to provide improvements of permanent value to themselves. I hope that we may find a number of hon. Members in the House to support us in our view that industries
can no longer be left alone to ruin the country, and to ruin the people of the country, as, unfortunately, they have been doing in the past. If this means a financial outlay on a considerable scale, it is an outlay which ought to be faced. The Prime Minister said that our national income will determine the standard of life. That is broadly true. I am concerned with the very large number of people who have not a high standard of life. I am afraid that the policy which has been announced will not affect the standard of life of that very large mass of people upon whom our industry depends.
Appeals are being made for money from charitable agencies. In the past we have had appeals to "give until it hurts." I submit, in all seriousness, that the situation is such that the nation ought to be required to give until it hurts. The only way to do that is not to leave it to the kind hearts of the charitably disposed people and to let off those who never answer appeals of that sort, but to do it fairly and squarely by a levy on the people through taxation. There ought to be a patriotism of peace, just as there is a patriotism of war, but it is a very slow thing to develop. We should never have carried through the Great War in those four years but for a supreme, integrated, national effort which overrode all individual interests. The same thing is needed to-day. We scrapped traditions, we scrapped old methods, we trod on many people's toes; old ways were swept away before the national necessity. I submit that the same thing is needed to-day.
The four lines, if I may just summarise my points, on which we should proceed are these: It is a pity that circumstances have prevented the International Economic Conference meeting earlier than it is going to meet. We agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that. We should like to see this problem of collapsing prices settled in some way or another, both by national and international policy. However important the international situation may be—and I do not underrate its importance—it is the bounden duty of every nation individually to utilise its own resources to the best possible advantage. Therefore, we look, first, to works of public development. Secondly, we look to co-ordinated attack upon individual industries to
ensure that those industries shall adapt themselves to the needs of new times, with State assistance and encouragement, or, if need be, State compulsion.
I believe that that programme, carried out with determination and vigour, might bring us back to the situation of 1929. Continued industrial reorganisation with the necessary safeguards might bring us even lower. Short of that, the situation will wait upon some change in the weather, which is unlikely to take place. Even if by those methods you get the figures down below the figures of 1929, the root problem will still remain until there is a change of heart and of attitude and of the system—and especially of the system—under which we are living, and until we can get unemployment for a percentage of people transformed into leisure for everyone. That is not an insoluble problem, but meantime, a heavy duty lies upon us to leave no stone unturned to bring even 200,000 people into work this winter and to do something to cut out the cancer that is eating into the hearts of men and bringing misery to the homes of our people.

5.0 p.m.

Captain BRISCOE: I am making no apology for asking the House for a short time to pay attention to the question of the employment of our people in the countryside. I represent a constituency which is as hard pressed as any agricultural constituency. During the last nine years, I have listened probably to as many hours of agricultural Debate as any other hon. Member, and I know that it is the general will not only of this House but of the country that our attention should be turned to this matter. I think it is wise that this agricultural Debate should be included in the wider and more extensive question of general unemployment. Agriculture and industry are inevitably mixed up and interlocked to a very great extent. The full employment and the prosperity of our industries must reflect itself to a considerable extent in the full employment and prosperity of the agricultural districts. That was always true, but it is more than ever true to-day, now that agriculture, owing to various forms of Protection, has been assured a definite percentage of our total markets. It is well known that, when the standard of living of the workers of this country
goes up, they at once turn to the consumption of more meat. It is clear to everyone that a man who has been working hard all day is more likely to consume a greater quantity of meat than a man who has been spending the greater part of the day in trying to find the winner of the three-thirty; and not only do the workers consume more meat as their standard of living goes up, but they come to the better quality of meat, and that is the home-produced meat.
Another view that I might put forward is that, now that we are making these agreements with our Dominions and with foreign countries, it is most important that the Government of the day should carefully adjust the balance, so that neither industry on the one hand nor agriculture on the other is favoured at the expense one of the other. It would obviously be fatal if two men in our industrial centres were put into employment and three men in our agricultural districts were turned out of employment by any move that we made; and it would equally be fatal if one man agriculturally were put into employment and two men in our industries were put out of employment. That would be a. disaster for this reason, that, for the first time for many years, agriculturists have got the sympathy of the big towns. It was due to that sympathy that at the last election the Government were returned to carry through Measures of immense importance to employment in our agricultural districts. We want those Measures to be permanent, but, if we were to stress too much in our negotiations the place of agriculture, we should at once lose the sympathy of our industrial areas, and those great policies which have been set going by this Government would be reversed, with disastrous results for those who are engaged on the soil. For these two reasons, I suggest, it is wise that agriculture has been included in a wide and general Debate on unemployment.
I would also like the House to consider what effect the Government's Measures have already had on the employment in agriculture in this country. The wheat quota alone must have been responsible this year for the employment of many thousands of men in our rural districts. If that Measure had not been passed, there is not the slightest doubt
that that form of agriculture—the form which employs the greatest number of people on the land—would have gone down to an enormous extent, and the misery in our countryside would have been very largely increased. Then, when we consider the amount of employment which the continuation of the Beet Sugar Subsidy has given, we realise that there again the Government have done much to maintain employment in our countryside. Protection has also been given to our horticultural produce, and the extent to which agriculture has come into the general tariff policy of the country has been of enormous benefit in maintaining employment. The long-range policy of the Government has been excellent, and we know that there is more to come. There will be legislation, undoubtedly, at an early date, to bring into operation the recommendations of the Lane Fox Commission. Shortly we expect—very shortly, we hope—will come the recommendations of the Milk Reorganisation Commission. All of those are of immense importance. I say that we want to keep the results of those commissions' reports, and we want to keep the results of the legislation which has already been enacted; and, in order to do that, we must retain the sympathy of our great industrial areas.
But, when one has said all that, we know, and no one knows better than the Minister of Agriculture and his Department, that there is a crisis in our agriculture which is graver and more sudden and more calamitous, I suppose, than any crisis which has formerly descended upon it. That is the crisis in the meat trade. I do urge upon the Government the necessity of doing something at the earliest possible moment. A large demand is being made that the Government should solve this question by tariffs, and by tariffs alone. If I thought that that would be effective, I should myself be pressing it on the Government at this moment, and I am equally convinced that, if the Government thought it would be effective, they would do it at once. There would be no difficulty about it; they could do it without a moment's delay. But it seems difficult to understand how that policy on its own account could solve this difficulty. Wholesale prices of meat have fallen since last June by 40 per cent., so that, if a duty of as much
as 40 per cent. had been put on to ins ported foreign meat last June, its results would have been entirely nullified by now. How does anyone know how much further the collapse of meat prices is going? No one can possibly tell. I do not believe that that policy in itself can possibly be the solution; the solution must lie in some restriction of quantity. We want to press upon the Government the fact that the time is short.
It is no good saying that something will be done in a few weeks, or a few months; what is wanted is that something should be done in a very few days. The Prime Minister in his speech led us to believe that the Minister of Agriculture might have something to say tonight. If he does not have anything to say to-night, I do hope he will give us the assurance that he will have a positive announcement to make within a very few days from now. If that does not happen, there is no knowing what may occur in our great agricultural areas. I am not going to give the Minister the figures showing the drop in prices, which startled me very much, because he knows and the House knows only too well through the Press and through the Minister's Department; but anything that we can do in this House, irrespective of party, to press upon the Minister the difficulties and the urgency of the situation must be a help to him in bringing forward immediate legislation.
There is one further thing that I want to say before I sit down. The farmers at this moment are in very grave difficulty, as everyone knows, with the people to whom they owe money—both the banks and the merchants. A lot of people are going about the country to-day trying to do their best to under-estimate the good of the legislation which the Government have already introduced. I do not wish to exaggerate the effects of that legislation, but I would like to say that no one to-day can do an iller service to the farmer than to try to under-estimate the results of what the Government have already done. That under-estimation of its results will only make those people to whom the farmer owes money more sensitive and more alarmed than they have been in the past, and the result will be that they will, more quickly than they have been doing, try to call in the money that is owing to them. I implore everyone, for the sake of the
farmers, not to try to under-estimate those splendid Measures which the Government have already passed.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am very glad that we have at last secured a Debate on unemployment under the present conditions. I have taken part in, or, at least, I have attended more Debates on unemployment in this House than anyone here except my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, and such Debates have always been vitiated because they were always on Motions of Censure or Motions for the reduction of the salary of the Minister, when one party was attacking and the other was defending, when no one was suggesting and no one contributing, but everyone was controverting. In those circumstances, one never got from the House of Commons its real view about the position, however grave it might be. I think we all owe a very deep debt of gratitude to the Leader of the Opposition for this very remarkable suggestion, which convinces me that he has a good deal of honest craft about him, and a vast amount of what is called "horse sense."
There are two problems with which the House of Commons, the Government and the country are confronted, and, although they more or less merge into each other, they are different in their character. The Prime Minister said that we must not make the mistake of imagining that this is the usual kind of fluctuation of business, that this is an ordinary trade depression. It is not merely the ordinary pre-War trade depression. It is not merely the very abnormal conditions which we have had in this country, above all other countries, since the War. It is the very abnormal slump which you now have in the whole world. It is impossible for the Government or anyone else to deal with this problem, without bearing in mind, first of all, that there is a world problem to be tackled, and that, when you have tackled that problem, you have abnormal difficulties in this country which have kept the unemployment register at a million and over for 10 years.
I should like, first of all, to say a word with regard to the general world problem. It would be a mistake to imagine that trade resumption is not going to be a long job. Up to the present hour, international trade has been shrinking—
imports, exports, and, therefore, necessarily, the carrying trade. There are 13,000,000 tons of shipping in the world laid up, and the ships on the sea are about half full. I know that a good deal of hope has been attached to the possibilities of the International Economic Conference, over which the Prime Minister is to preside. He was a little indignant because a paragraph appeared in some of the papers to the effect that the Conference would not meet until the beginning of next year. I do not think there is very much difference between that and what he actually said. What he said, practically, was, "Before Christmas we shall be engaged in what is known as a wide survey." There will be speeches reviewing the whole position, so wide that they will probably never come to the point. Then there will be committees. There is a committee now—a preliminary committee. That committee, I understand, will not report before January, and, whatever the Prime Minister may say, they will not come to business until the beginning of the year. The winter will have passed before they have come to any conclusions.
May I also point out this fact, because it is no use, I will not say suppressing facts, but ignoring them. Before they can come to any conclusions at all, there are essential elements of the problem which will have to be dealt with. What are the elements which create uncertainty and disturbance throughout the world and prevent traders from having that kind of confidence which enables them to launch out? Disarmament—I do not know what the prospect is there. The French Government have put forward very bold proposals, but no one can tell what they all mean just yet. They will explain them probably in greater detail later on. There are some very vital questions there which have not yet been answered. The Chinese imbroglio—what is happening there? There is, beyond that, the currency question, and there is, beyond that again, the most vital issue of what is to be done with the restrictions on trade, which are doing more than anything else to hamper exchange and business between the nations. That has been ruled out. Before the Economic Conference can come to business which will be satisfactory and definite and decisive, those elements of disturbance have to be removed. So far
we have had a great many discussions, but we have had no decisions. I am not talking about this Government. I am talking of the international sphere. Therefore, anyone who imagines that you are going to begin the process of world recovery on anything like an adequate scale in the immediate future is building, I think, on sand.
I come now to our own problem—and the Government must have plans for both. What is our problem? Let us look at it. Our problem is that we have a population of 43,000,000 or 44,000,000 in a very small country. We are the most densely populated great country in the world. We have almost twice the population of Germany per square mile, and that in proportion to its size is the greatest industrial country in Europe except for ourselves. Up till the present, at least before the War, there was only one thing that enabled us to maintain our population in comfort, and that was the fact that we had the highest proportion of international trade, including carrying trade, of any country in the world. That has not been the case since the War. Since the War the world has recovered. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the economic difficulties of the Peace Settlements. In spite of that, the world recovered. In 1927, 1928, 1929, there was very considerable prosperity in other countries, but let me point out this very ominous and significant fact—and unless we get it well into our minds we really cannot begin considering remedies for unemployment. In other countries, international trade was up 100, 110, 120 and in one or two cases 150 per cent. compared with pre-War. This country never got any higher than 86 per cent. It would not only be a fundamental mistake, it would be folly for us to ignore that fact. There is no basis upon which you can begin to consider your problem unless you get that fact well into your mind. Are we likely to recover? Are we likely to leap up from 86 to 100 and from 100 to 110 and 120? I say, not only after considering it myself, but after consulting some of the best authorities who were available, without reference to party, that I cannot see it in the immediate future, and there are permanent reasons, which have nothing to do with either Free Trade or tariffs. I hope no one on either side will let that for a moment out of their minds.
We in this country have built up industries in every part of the world. We provided the equipment. We paid for it with our capital. More than that, British brains have been organising it in various parts of the world. Those are permanent factors. Tariffs or no tariffs, that will remain, and you will find that some of the greatest staple exporting industries in this country cannot hope to recover their pre-War position. It is no use shrinking from facing unpleasant facts because they are unpleasant. I was appointed chairman of a committee on unemployment in Mr. Asquith's Cabinet to examine the facts abroad and the facts here. That was before the War. I have always been impressed with this fact—I have said it in the House and outside—that we were taking a very grave risk in trusting the prosperity and even the existence of the life of this country upon a continuation of our industrial and shipping pre-eminence. It always struck me as being very much too precarious. What is going to happen here in the immediate future? There are more competent authorities than I who have avowed publicly that they cannot make up their minds. Here again I would invite the House very solemnly not to build too much on optimistic declarations. Let them see among other things the weekly traffic returns. I am not talking of passengers—there may be an explanation of that—but of goods, merchandise, things we are manufacturing, coal. We are down £249,000. That is in comparison with a bad week last year. Here is another fact. If you take the whole year, the average is £189,000. The last few weeks have been worse than the first few weeks of this year. We ought to bear that in consideration.
The Government claim that they have dealt with the immediate crisis. They have balanced the Budget. They have restricted imports. This is a non-controversial Debate and, as far as I am concerned, it shall continue so, and for that reason I am not going to examine the merits or demerits of any plans which the Government have put before the country. I am going to proceed on the assumption that they are right in their claim that they have dealt with the immediate crisis. What is their next move? I listened to the Prime Minister. It is undoubtedly time to take stock seriously. I have come down to hear the Prime Minister unfold-
ing the policy of the Government for dealing with the greatest crisis this country has passed through, in many respects graver than the War, with very nearly 3,000,000 of unemployed and with prospects, both in the world and here, which rather terrify. Frankly, I am entirely at a loss to know what the Government mean to do. I ask any hon. Member who listened as carefully to that speech as I did if he has any idea in his mind what the Government mean to do. The Prime Minister said he was thinking aloud. I hope that is not the way he thinks silently, because it is not a very hopeful prospect. There was a good deal of confusion, there was a good deal of hesitation, there was a good deal of bewilderment. The best thing he said was that he was only speaking for himself. I hope before this Debate is through we are going to hear something definite. We cannot look forward to the prospect of keeping anything between 1,000,000 and 3,000,000 people out of work, eating the bread of idleness, through no fault of their own, and we are entitled to ask the Government what it is that they mean to do.
So far they have not revealed any plan except tariffs. I am not going to discuss that, and I will tell the House why. It is not necessary for what I have to say, because, whatever tariffs may do, they are not going to deal with this problem, for one reason. Let them get this fact into their minds. There is no Protectionist country in the world which depends so exclusively upon its manufacturing and its shipping as we do which has not at least three times as many people on the land as we have.
5.30 p.m.
You may have your way of doing it and I may have mine. Do let us pool our ideas. I have never put mine forward as though I were really delivering the tables of the law. I have only made my contribution and given my reasons for it as one who was bred on the soil and knows pretty well what country life really is. I am not going to pretend that my ideas are the best. I have just put them into the common pool, and I do implore hon. Members in every part of the House to do exactly the same thing. Every country, whether Protectionist or Free Trade, has at least three times as many people on the land in proportion to its population as we have here. I have
been firmly convinced for years from what study I have been able to give to this problem that you will never get rid of this great volume of unemployment in the country until you place at least 1,000,000 of your workers either actually on the soil or in ancillary occupations, of which there are many. Every man you put on the soil finds work for another in one way or another.
Let me give the House of Commons one or two figures. Germany, as I pointed out, has not much more than about half of the population to the square mile which we have, and, therefore, its problem is an easier one. It has got 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 workers on the soil. If you take the proportion of our population to that of Germany, it means that we ought to have 4,500,000 workers on the soil, either farmers or labourers. We have actually, in farmers and labourers, a little over 1,200,000. You may say that that is because Germany has Protection. Very well, you have got it, therefore get on. But let us take countries which are substantially Free Trade countries, where if there are duties they are so trifling that no hon. Gentleman on that side of the House would look at them. I mean Holland and Belgium. They are practically Free Trade countries in so far as agriculture is concerned. If we had as many people on the land in proportion to population as Holland has, we should have 3,500,000 instead of 1,200,000. Belgium is a case which is probably much more comparable. It is an industrial country and as densely populated as England and Wales. If we had as many people on the land here as there are in Belgium, we should have 3,000,000 instead of 1,200,000.
Why have they got three times as many people on the land as we have? It cannot be altogether Protection, because I have given you Free Trade countries, and I have given you Protectionist countries. There must be some factor which is common to all of thorn but which is not applicable to us. What is it? They have a larger number of smallholdings by far than we have in this country. Germany has very nearly 1,800,000 holdings. We have 400,000, that is, great and small, in both cases. Germany has four-and-a-half times as many as we have, but, still more, they are smaller holdings. You have your half-an-acre and acre, and a very considerable number of two-and-a-
half acres, which means something which is not quite enough for the labourer and his family but which, with the work he gets on the bigger holdings, enables him to carry through, and you create a reservoir of labour in all these districts which can be drawn upon when there is any special pressure in agriculture. The same thing applies to Holland. The same thing applies to Belgium. That is the factor.
I should like the House to consider for a few moments what that means. This is the only country in the world where the labourer is landless. Not 1 per cent. of the labourers have any land of their own. That is not true of any other country in the world. What is more, immediately after the War you had in this country about 1,000,000 labourers. They are down now to about 800,000. They are going rapidly. I received a letter to-day from a county in Wales in which it said that the hiring fairs would be on in another week or 10 days and that we should find that hundreds would never be hired again. That is the meaning of extending Unemployment Insurance to the labourers. There is a real cause for it now. Can anyone be surprised? Smallholdings have three advantages in the countries I have referred to, and it is all worked out statistically. I am not going to bother the House with statistics but I have them. A smallholding produces per acre more than a very large one. It employs more labour. In the third place, it creates a prospect for all those who are engaged in the cultivation of the land. It gives them all a chance. It gives them all a hope; something to look forward to. It is a ladder. Every labourer in Germany knows that there is a chance that he will get a holding. He knows that whether he does well out of the holding or not depends upon whether he knows his business, because one man may make four times as much out of a plot of ground as another. There is hope. There is something which satisfies him. There is the ambition of the man.
You are paying the labourer 30 shillings a week. Why should the young labourer remain on the land? I have found the greatest difficulty in getting young workers on the soil, and if hon. Gentlemen will take the trouble, which I did, to look at the statistics of the labourers who leave the soil, they will
find that the highest percentage is that of labourers under 30. The old fellow settles down. He has given up hope. The young fellow will not stand it. The labourers now are educated. They will not lead that life. They have decided that the man who wants to get on in the country must get out of it. That is the conclusion to which they are coming. Young people will not stay on the land because there is no prospect. Therefore, I do ask the Government to consider whether something cannot be done to create in this country on a great scale a system which has been found successful in every great country in the world. It is no use talking about countries with 3,000,000 square miles where there are endless prairies, but take the great old countries like ours, thickly populated. The only method by which you have been able to get the population on the land is by giving them a breath of it, a hold on it, not something which makes them easily shifted and spun about with no interest in it except a. mere hiring interest.
I know the reason which has been advanced against that up to the present. Whenever I put forward that case I am answered in this way. They say: "You want to reclaim the land. You want to recondition it; you want uncultivated land; you want to bring more land into cultivation. What is the good of doing that when the land you have in cultivation at the present moment does not pay? What is the good of increasing your produce when the produce which you have now cannot be sold at a decent price?" But you claim that you have put that right. You claim that in future a decent price will be guaranteed. For the moment I am not going to consider at whose expense, because that is controversial. You claim by your legislation, the legislation you have carried, or the legislation you are about to carry, that you have guaranteed a decent price to the cultivator of the soil. If you have, get on with the next step. Do not leave it where it is. [Interruption.] I want to hear what the next step is. I am very glad that my right hon. and gallant Friend is in charge. Of his predecessor I have a very high opinion, but his mind is built on more conventional lines that that of my right hon. and gallant Friend. There is as much difference between them as there is between a train and a tractor. A tram runs on very defined lines which have been laid down for it. It starts at
the point which is indicated, and ends at another point and never goes beyond. On the other hand, the tractor cuts new ground, and, therefore, we are all looking forward to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman—those of us who believe in him—to cut fresh ground. If he does not do it, well, he has a great many friends, and he will disappoint them very sadly. Let us appeal to him to take the thing in hand.
What have you done? You have £220,000,000 of produce which you are turning out of your farms and your market gardens, and you import £350,000,000. You say that you are going to stop that. Can you name any industry in this country in which you can produce to the limit of your capacity and still find a market at your own doors? Whether it be cotton, wool, ships, coal, boots, there is no industry except that of the cultivation of the soil where you could cultivate and produce up to the limit of your capacity and still find a bigger market at your own door for a surplus. This is the time for the Government to take the thing in hand. May I appeal to the new Minister of Agriculture, and also to the Lord President of the Council, not to proceed timidly and tentatively? This experiment has been tried twice, but on rather an overcautious scale. Perhaps that was necessary in order to see whether it would succeed. In 1908 we had a Smallholdings Act which settled 20,000 on the land. In 1919 there was another Smallholdings Act for ex-soldiers under which 24,000 or 25,000 were settled. The latter scheme had the disadvantage that it came at a time when the cost of buildings was two or three times as high as it is to-day. We have settled about 50,000 on the land. Let us take the trouble to see what is happening. Someone gave me a report of the county council in Shropshire on the experiment there. The smallholders have done better than any class of farmers. Talk about expenditure! The Salop Council spent about £371,000 in buying land and in equipment, and their latest valuation, in March last, of the total value is £451,000. That is an answer to the criticism about wild schemes.
The right hon. Gentleman said: "Let us have some plan for unemployment
that will allow people to have an occupation that they can pursue: something that they can continue." You have it here. The experiment has been a success. If hon. Members ask whether everybody one puts upon the land is a success, I would ask: "Of what trade could you say that?" There is, however, a smaller percentage of failures among smallholders than among the class of large farmers, I am sorry to say. Read the "Times" to-day as to what is happening in Norfolk and in Lincoln. I know quite well about our part of the country. These smallholders have weathered the storm far better than the bigger farmers.
You may say: "This is going to cost money." Will the House bear with me while I deal with that point? This is an opportunity, a supreme opportunity. I beg the House of Commons and the Government to treat unemployment not altogether as a disaster and a calamity, but as an opportunity. What do I mean by that? This is the best time to launch out on an experiment of this kind. Money is cheaper than it has ever been. What does your Conversion mean? It means that there is no other way in which you can invest your money. If a man says that he will not convert, you pay him his cash. Would hon. Members mind telling me what he can do with that cash? If you are a trustee—and some hon. Members are trustees—you know what that means. Where else can you put the money? Money is cheap and plentiful. Can you find anything which would be more productive of happiness, of employment, of wealth, of contentment, of strength to this country than the settlement of half a, million people on the land? Materials are cheap to-day and land is cheap. You can build more cheaply than you will be able to do when trade recovers. Meanwhile, you have millions of people unemployed, who are sick of idleness. They are of the best, and you want the best.
A special feature of the unemployed was mentioned by the Prime Minister. There is a larger proportion of young people on the unemployment registers to-day than there ever were in the old days. Then, they kept on the young people and turned off those who were decrepit. Now, you have hundreds of thousands of young people rusting, and there is a danger of their rotting. Many of them have never had a job in their lives, and they are a
source of anxiety to their parents. This is your time. These young people are young enough to learn a new trade. Many of them have no trade. There are many of them who will never be employed again in the trades in which they were formerly occupied. Coal will never go back to its old figures, and cotton will not. If you are ever going to employ these people, you must teach them some new trade. Why not agriculture? You say that it will cost too much. What does unemployment cost? True, these schemes will involve a very considerable expenditure. If the Minister of Agriculture tries again the same old plan to settle a few hundreds on the land, he might as well not waste his time and throw away his own reputation on so miserable and wretched an attempt. It has to be tried on a great scale or not at all.
Cost! Has anybody taken the trouble to take pencil and paper and work out what unemployment has cost and is going to cost? Since October of last year unemployment, between the allowances under the Unemployment Insurance Act and outdoor relief, which is always ignored—outdoor relief has gone up 200,000 or 300,000 since the changes in unemployment insurance—has cost this country £120,000,000. [HON. MEMBERS: "More!"] If I have under-estimated the figures that strengthens my argument. For the moment, I take the figure as £120,000,000. This Parliament has four years to run if it runs till the last dread hour of its existence. What are the assumptions? I will give a favourable assumption. I will assume that world trade recovers with fair rapidity and that by this time next year the unemployment figure of 2,700,000 will be down to 2,000,000. I will assume that in the following year world trade will have recovered completely and that by 1st October of that year we shall be down to 1,000,000 unemployed, which has been the normal figure since 1921. I will assume, further, that for the remaining two years the figure of unemployment will be in and around the million figure. What will that cost in the lifetime of this Parliament? £400,000,000. That, in a Parliament called to deal with this problem! £400,000,000 for maintaining people in enforced idleness, and nothing for it but. deterioration and misery. Is it not better
that something should be done in order to deal with the problem?
There was a great Act for which the right hon. Gentleman's Government were responsible, but he never mentioned it. Why did he not mention it? He has not forgotten it. It was carried only last year. It was a Bill for reclaiming derelict land, for reconditioning land, for drainage, for settling very considerable numbers of people on the land, and for training them for that purpose. He said not a word about it. The Government have scrapped that Act. Do they mean to leave it on the scrap-heap? Are they not going to take it out? It was a bold scheme, a very bold scheme, and I thought a wise scheme. If they have a better one, do let us have it. If not, why do they not use that Act? It will cost at least £400,000,000 for unemployment. It will cost a very considerable sum of money to do this job well. You can borrow. How will you pay? You will save nearly half the cost in the reduced cost of unemployment.
Go to any man who is reclaiming land to-day—I could name a few—or who is reconditioning land which has been allowed to go out of cultivation and say "For all the extra men you put on we will give you the unemployment dole. We will also take into account that for every man you put on you are employing another man behind. We will make an allowance for that." You would get millions of acres on those terms. Why should not the Government do it? It will increase prosperity. It will put a, permanent population on the soil. It will strengthen this country in peace, and, although I hope that that dread prospect will never be realised it will strengthen it if it ever came to war. I remember the days when we were within a few weeks of starvation. You are spending £110,000,000 upon the defence of the Realm against prospective and possible enemies. Well, this is a branch of national defence. You ought not to begrudge the sum of money necessary to pay interest at the present rate and sinking fund for putting half a million people, and possibly more, upon the soil of this country.
6.0 p.m.
I do hope the Government will not take refuge in optimistic predictions as
to the future. Reading the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bewdley (Mr. Baldwin) I must say that he has shown a better understanding of his countrymen in that respect. We are not a mercurial people, easily exalted and just as easily cast down. We are a people who always do much better if you present the real difficulties and dangers and appeal to them to take action, to rise to the occasion. The right hon. Gentleman has always shown a better appreciation of his countrymen. He has always said: "You have great difficulties in front of you; face them, and keep doing it." It would be more useful if he went a little further and told us what he means we are to keep doing. What is his plan; his proposal? The first responsibility is that of the Government. I have never remembered a crisis in our national history when Parliament, whatever its party, did not follow the lead of the executive in whatever action it took. Even the present Government have experienced that. Before the Dissolution, and afterwards, they put proposals before Parliament, drastic even revolutionary in character, and Parliament supported them. I believe not only that Parliament will support them again if they take bold, courageous and strong action, not as if they were frightened of their fate, but that the bolder and the stronger the action the greater will be the support they will rally to themselves from every quarter of this kingdom.

Mr. LAMBERT: Anyone who has listened to the eloquence of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) will realise that in his heart he is a cultivator of the land. He and I have been old comrades, and, although we have not always agreed, I know that he has the interests of agriculture at heart. Let me bring the House back to the real crisis. The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs has talked about smallholdings and land reclamation—good land in Norfolk was sold the other week for 35s. an acre—and the Prime Minister has talked of the Economic Conference. These things are too far away. We want relief at once. The crisis is here. The real trouble is that prices have fallen; they will not pay the costs of
production. There can be no subject greater than agriculture germane to an unemployment debate. We have hundreds and thousands of acres under-cultivated and hundreds and thousands of men out of work. Cannot we bring them together? I think we can, that is if you will give the men who were cultivating the land a fair opportunity of getting a decent livelihood.
I go back to the right hon. Gentleman's speech of 1919 at Caxton Hall, which was a prelude to bringing into this House a Bill guaranteeing prices to the farmer. That Bill was scrapped next year. During the War we were near to starvation, and it is the undoubted fact that the urban population of this country are as much interested in agriculture as we who are agriculturists. They have to depend largely upon foreign food. The Treaty of Versailles which the right hon. Gentleman negotiated, with its principle of self-determination, put up tariffs all over Europe, and we cannot get our exports abroad. We never got back more than 86 per cent. of our pre-War trade and it is, therefore, essential to cultivate our own land and to increase its productivity. We have drifted along. Last year there was a financial collapse. It was not expected, and now, to use an expressive phrase of the right hon. Gentleman, I am sorry that the pound cannot look the dollar in the eye. Therefore, I ask for a real measure of relief from the Government at once.
This is a National Government and it has a huge majority. My right hon. Friend has said that the country will follow the executive. I am quite certain that this House will follow the executive. But let there be no mistake about the crisis. In 1921 there were 998,000 men engaged on the land; to-day there are only 809,000; that is, 189,000 men gone from the land in 11 years. In three years, since 1929, 80,000 men have gone from the land. Who can measure what the country has lost in losing these splendid fellows, some of the best of our population? Again, I come back to the one factor—the price of the products. To-day with the capital of the landowner and with the skill and capital of the farmer a labourer cannot be employed at a wage of 30s. a week—a low enough wage in all conscience. To-day an unemployed man with three children and a wife gets
29s. 9d. per week. Our agricultural workers only get 30s. per week, and hundreds of them have to be discharged. Therefore, I say to the Government that the real economic fact facing agriculture is the price of the products. I have the greatest possible suspicion of theorists. There are many officials in the Ministry of Agriculture who have great plans, all sorts of plans, but I have never known them taking a farm and making it pay. When they do that I shall be glad to listen to them. I read in the "Times" to-day that the Government were considering setting up State abattoirs. The "Times" gives the fact in these words:
A sub-committee of the Economic Advisory Council was appointed some months age to inquire into the possibilities of adopting a system of centralised slaughtering in this country.
What is the good of appointing such a subcommittee to consider the slaughtering of animals and the marketing of meat? It really is playing with the subject. I have the greatest possible suspicion of economists. They are always giving advice; generally different advice. If I might give a word of advice to the Government I would say that if they propose to have an Economic Conference next year do not put any economists on it but practical men, some merchants, some manufacturers and some farmers. They might get on then. I have no doubt that we shall hear something about marketing. Here let me point out that the regulations are hampering and harassing agriculture. I brought lip the case of a man in South Devon the other day, of a young fellow who was a milk distributor just starting business, who was told that unless he paid his assistant. 52s. per week he would be prosecuted. That is one of the regulations which is hampering agriculture to-day. You will not guarantee 52s. a week to the milk producer but you guarantee it to the milk distributor.
We have had from the Ministry of Agriculture orange books galore as to how farmers should carry on their farming. There was an admirable opportunity for the Ministry of Agriculture to intervene only the other week when there was a milk dispute in London. Since 1914 the Ministry has increased the number of its officials. In 1914 there were about 600; and to-day there are 1,600. There was a milk dispute in London. The Ministry
have issued orange books on the distribution of milk, and here was an admirable opportunity for these 1,000 officials to show farmers how to distribute their milk. I did not see any eagerness to do that. I have protested in this House once, and twice and thrice, and I shall go on protesting, against the charge that farmers are uneconomic, that they do not know their business and that they are unenterprising. It is no good saying that the farmers are not enterprising or that they do not know their job. They produce the best crops and the finest cattle.
We were told to wait until the Ottawa Conference was over. That Conference is over; and I am glad of it, but do not let us make any mistake. The results of that Conference have been profoundly disappointing to agriculturists. I say that without any fear of contradiction. I have had letters from farmers all over the country. I have no doubt that, too, the results of the Ottawa Conference were disappointing to Dominion agriculturists. For my own part, I agree with the right hon. Member for Bewdley (Mr. Baldwin), that the British farmer is the fellow who should have the first run of the home market, and if it comes to a question as between Saskatchewan and South Molton I am for South Molton each time.
About 70 per cent. of agricultural products are meat products. It is the Dominion competition that has brought prices down, the competition of New Zealand and Australia. Really the Government will have to go into this question very much more closely than they have done, because unless Dominion competition, in mutton especially, is diminished, there is no hope for the sheep farmer in this country for many years to come. The Dominions are working under a depreciated currency and they are flooding the British market. I know the difficulties that the Government had at Ottawa. I can understand them. They had to come home with an Agreement, but now that they have come home with an Agreement which has benefited manufacturers more than agriculturists, it is their business to give the farmers a turn. The price fall has been too terrific. Take the case of fat sheep. I will quote the figures of the Ministry. In 1929 fat sheep were 11¼d. per lb. In October they were 6d. a lb.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If they can get 6d.

Mr. LAMBERT: I agree that it is difficult to get 6d., but I am always moderate, and I am taking the Ministry's figures. Bacon pigs per score fetched 15s. 7d. in 1929; to-day, 8s. 5d. Butter in 1929 fetched 20s. 6d. for 12 lbs.; to-day 13s. 3d. Store sheep in 1929 sold for £2 8s. 2d.; to-day, the price is £1 2s. 10d. Store pigs, which were £2 2s. ld. in 1929, in October of this year fetched 19s. 10d. The wages of an agricultural worker are 30s. a week, roughly £78 a year. In 1929 the farmer could pay a year's wages with 32 sheep. To-day it takes 68 sheep to do so. How can the farmers pay those wages? Is it any wonder that men are being dismissed? I remember that from the other side of the House we had much discussion of the cuts in the pay of teachers, and in unemployment benefit. What has been the cut in the farmers' income during the last few years? Yet the farmer and the agricultural labourer are the real producers. I want now to quote evidence of an indisputable character as regards the Ottawa Conference. As we agriculturists have helped the manufacturers, the Government must help us. Here is the testimony of Sir Arthur Hazlerigg, who is Chairman of the Council of Agriculture of England. He said, as reported in the press on 28th October:
Farmers are in a desperate plight. There seems to be no Government policy by which any quick help can be extended to the live-stock farmer. Our advice was rejected at Ottawa, and in saying this I impute no blame to the late Minister of Agriculture or his agricultural advisers, but the fact remains that agriculture has once again been sacrificed to the supposed needs of industry, shipping and vested interests.
We agriculturists cannot sit down under that. We demand now fair play with the other industries. Agriculture has been treated worse than any other industry in all these negotiations. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister told us in his speech, "Oh, yes, you must contribute to your own redemption and improve your organisation." I interjected, "What about the iron and steel industry?" There were none of these conditions laid down for the iron and steel industry. I have here the report of the Advisory Committee which said:
In our first report, presented on 8th April, we stated:
'We are satisfied that the maintenance of a prosperous iron and steel industry in the highest degree of efficiency is essential to the economic progress of this country, while from the point of view of national security it must still he regarded as vital. We accept, therefore, the preliminary proposition that this industry should be adequately protected and protected at once.'
That was for iron and steel. Why not agriculture? If you have Protection you must have Protection all round; you cannot leave the agriculturist out. What does the advisory committee say? They have proposed that there shall be a duty put on for two years. They say: "Oh, yes. During that period you will have to reorganise." But the Prime Minister said that we agriculturists must reorganise first. Why? Why should we not have precisely the same treatment as the iron and steel manufacturers? I am very grateful to the Government for their wheat policy. I think the Wheat Bill was an admirable Bill so far as it went. It did not go very far. It is a temporary Bill, but it is going to guarantee to the farmer a certain price up to 6,000,000 quarters. I have read in the newspapers that the farmers have all rushed to plant wheat because they will have some certainty of a price in return. Our production may go up to 9,000,000 quarters. Would not that be a very, very wise expenditure?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs knows full well what happened in April, 1917. He said just now that we were then within a few weeks of starvation. A few million quarters of wheat would have been invaluable at that time. As he said, when we are spending £110,000,000 upon armaments, surely it is wise to spend money on insuring our people in time of stress against starvation. But again I have to say to the Government—they must please realise this—that they have injured the farmer in many respects, especially the stock raiser. They have taxed his feeding stuffs. The right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) was in the Government at the time, and I do not know whether he approved or not. [HON. MEMBERS: "He opposed!"] After all, these fights between Liberal Members of Parliament do not add to the dignity of the Liberal party. I quoted the other day what a constituent of mine had told me. He had carefully worked out what it had cost him, as a big pig breeder, to
keep 1,500 pigs. He is a very intelligent, up-to-date and enterprising farmer. Do not let the Prime Minister tell him that he does not know how to market his produce, for he does. This farmer told me that he had spent, between April and October, £132 extra in taxes on his feeding stuffs. I ask the Government to give our farmers fair play. They have taxed many of the farmers' implements—ploughs, reapers, threshers, 15 per cent.; forks and shovels and scythes, 20 per cent.; sacks, bags, cordage and twine, 20 per cent.; saddlery, 20 per cent.; sulphate of ammonia, 20 per cent.; nitrate of soda, 20 per cent.; and there is an application before the Advisory Committee to put a tax on super-phosphates. Really the Government have taxed the farmers' raw material. I say to them, give the farmer fair play. That is what I am asking for here. This is a question that cannot wait. It is much too grave and too serious to wait. If anyone reads the papers this morning he will see what difficulties there are. Take the "Times." Here is an article in leaded type to give point to the warning.

Orders of the Day — NORFOLK CRASH FEARED.

Norfolk farming is really in an appalling plight. In the past three days I have had the opportunity of meeting a score of leading men in the business life of Norfolk. Farmers, landowners, bankers, auctioneers, accountants and merchants all say that they dread a general financial crash after Christmas."

And here is what, to me, is one of the most distressing parts of the whole problem.
It seems to be the general opinion that as soon as wheat sowing is finished and the wheat crop lifted 10,000 farm workers will be dismissed. They will turn to the public assistance committees for relief.
There could be nothing more terrible than this. I have lived with the farm labourers, I know them, know what fine fellows they are. They are men who know their business, bring up their families, and are honest, sober and respectable. They attend the village chapel or church on Sundays. These men are to be turned into paupers. Here is a problem for the Government, and I ask the Government to face that problem and to face it at once. It is the most urgent problem of the day, and I hope that before the Debate closes we shall have a satisfactory reply from the Government Benches.

Major MILNER: I have heard the night hon. Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert) on a number of occasions when agriculture has been debated, but I have never heard him in quite as depressing a mood as he is in to-day. In the days of the Labour Government the right hon. Gentleman used to say, "Leave us alone. Let us work out our own salvation." At a later date he begged for some form of Protection, for tariffs, and for many months past he has been one of the most ardent supporters of the National Government, of import duties and of Acts imposing tariffs. But the right hon. Gentleman is apparently not satisfied now. Having done his worst he still, like Oliver Twist, wants something more. It is really extremely difficult, however nonpartisan one wishes to be, to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman, or to gather what he really wants, having in view the various speeches that he has made, unless it be the one thing that he has brought into each speech, and that is a reduction in the wages paid to agricultural labourers because, he says, farmers cannot afford to pay present wages.

Mr. LAMBERT: Really that is a complete misrepresentation. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has never heard me in my life advocate a reduction of farm labourers' wages. What I have advocated is that you shall pay a sufficient price for the labourer's product, so that the farmer may pay the wages.

6. 30 p.m.

Major MILNER: I at once withdraw if I have done the right hon. Gentleman any injustice. He certainly indicated—or so I thought—that it was not possible to pay the present wages, and I gathered, by implication, that one of the thoughts passing through his mind was that of a reduction in agricultural workers wages. But, if I am wrong, I certainly withdraw.

Mr. LAMBERT: If the hon. and gallant Member is going to withdraw, he had better withdraw frankly.

Major MILNER: So I do. I have a great deal of sympathy with the Minister of Agriculture because of the "damning with faint praise" which has been indulged in this afternoon by the right hon. Gentleman below the Gangway and also because I have seen a somewhat menacing figure, which I recognise from previous experience as the representative of the National Farmers' Union, in the
Lobbies during the last few days. Having heard the Prime Minister's speech, I also sympathise with the Minister because of the difficulty which he must be experiencing in obtaining any decision as to what course he ought or ought not to adopt. If there is any hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House who can assist us in the troubles through which the agricultural community is passing, there is no one whom I would rather see occupying the position of Minister of Agriculture than the present holder of that office.
If this were an ordinary agricultural debate I should feel it my bounden duty—as indeed, to some extent, I do feel it my duty even on this occasion—to urge upon the Government the immediate setting up of a national agricultural commission or other body, with appropriate commodity boards, to organise agriculture and in order that some direction might be given to those engaged in agriculture as to the commodities which they can produce and sell on the most economic basis. I should also suggest that much greater advantage ought to he taken than has been taken in the last few months of the Marketing Act passed by the last Labour Government. I am glad to see that in the Reorganisation Commission on Pig Products, and elsewhere, there has been recognition of that Measure. But there are other commodities to which it might be extended with the greatest advantage. I should also urge that no satisfactory solution of this problem can be obtained until the land of the country is nationally owned and controlled, and that proper safeguards should be provided for the workers engaged in the industry. I understand, however, that without prejudice to our ordinary political views, this is an occasion on which we are supposed to deal with the practical possibilities of the immediate future, and it has been said by more than one speaker that the problem of price is of the greatest immediate importance.
I fear that time will not permit me to go fully into the international position in that respect, but I suggest to hon. Members opposite that their reliance upon tariffs and quotas, in relation to an increase in price, in the present condition of falling markets is quite misplaced. If it is desirable to raise prices
—and I believe that it is desirable to raise wholesale prices—I suggest that the Minister and his advisers ought now to look to what in the long run they will have to look to, and that is the possibility of bulk purchases by import boards or otherwise. I believe that a great advantage would accrue from bodies of that sort. It would be possible to give such a board a monopoly of importing foodstuffs, and in particular meat, and in that way give an assured protection to the home producer which neither tariffs or quotas can be guaranteed to give. The tariff is too crude and uncertain and the same remark applies to the quota. Under neither of these systems is there any guarantee of the price which the home producer will eventually receive. The whole matter is in the lap of the gods, whereas with a purchasing and selling organisation the price can be fixed and such price regulations laid down as will enable the home producer to sell remuneratively. That system combined with the extension of the Marketing Act—and action in relation to the international solution to which I shall presently refer—is the real solution of the price problem.
The report of the Pig Products Reorganisation Commission goes a long way to prove my point. That Report contemplates, in certain circumstances, the possibility of setting up an import board but the Commission naturally say that they are unwilling to contemplate at the moment such a degree of public control as might eventually be found necessary. But that Commission, which was presided over by a very respected former Member of this House, gives some support to the views I have expressed—views which we on this side have put forward on more than one occasion. There is one other factor which ought to have the attention of the Government. An authority has estimated that there is a difference of no less than £300,000,000 between the price which the consumer pays and the price which the producer receives. It seems an almost impossible figure but if there is a difference of anything like that amount, or even half that amount, there is ample scope for action by the Government to ensure, first, that the producer shall receive the full price to which he is entitled, and secondly that the consumer is not exploited.
One advantage of the method of the import board is that it enables, as no other system does, reciprocal arrangements to be made with other countries. I visualise the time when there will have have to be some international organisation carrying out exchange or barter transactions, and acting as a clearing house between nations. If we had such an organisation as I have just suggested on however small a scale, in this country, it would help very much towards the setting up of a larger organisation on those lines. We read that barter transactions have taken place and are taking place between various nations to-day. I read that from my own city of Leeds yarn has been exported to Spain in exchange for wine and tin. Who is to consume the wine in Leeds in view of the unemployment there I have not the remotest idea, but I imagine that it will probably stop in London en route. Textile goods have recently been exchanged for timber with the Russians; coffee from Brazil has been exchanged for coal from the United States, and we know the historic case of Mr. Bennett's exchange of aluminium from Canada for oil from Russia. The Government, therefore, might consider setting up commodity boards to regulate imports because tariffs, apparently, are not sufficient, and such a step might lead to an international organisation of the kind I have indicated not only for agricultural products but for many other products.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) has very eloquently and ably pointed out means which are at the Minister's disposal, and which could be more quickly applied than those I have indicated in order to find employment. We have heard about land drainage. The House knows that many weeks of Parliamentary time were taken up in passing the Land Drainage Act, 1930. I had the honour of serving at the Ministry of Agriculture with Dr. Addison the then Minister, and numerous very large schemes for land drainage were complete, and cut and dried before the Labour Government fell. Under that Act appropriate catchment area boards had been set up to the number of 37 or 47 throughout the country, but I believe that, with the exception of one or two schemes which had actually started when the
Labour Government left office, not one single piece of work of that sort has been commenced since the National Government took office about a year ago.
I have particulars here of some 15 or 20 schemes, eight of which would occupy some thousands of men for a period of 10 years. There is work on the Great Ouse which would occupy 2,400 men for 10 years; there is work on the Thames which would occupy 3,600 men for 10 years, and there is work on the East Norfolk rivers which would occupy 4,000 men for 10 years. There are other schemes of work on other rivers which would occupy smaller numbers of men for an equal or less number of years. All this work is available. The plans, I believe, are in the Ministry and it is work which comes within the Prime Minister's definition of having permanent value. In the case of the Trent I always understood that the flooding which took place periodically meant that a loss of no less than £5,000,000 might be incurred by farmers, property owners and others whose lands abutted on the river. When we recollect that this is work which has waited for many years, that a Royal Commission has determined that it is necessary and urgent and that thanks to the Labour Government the necessary legislation has been passed to enable it to be carried out, it seems folly not to set these thousands of men to work in this very useful occupation.
There is a great deal of other work that could be done under the Land Drainage Act. When I left the Ministry there were 1,100 schemes of field drainage approved none of which presumably have been carried into effect. There were 200 or 300 water supply schemes and 73 schemes for reclaiming fenlands, which would have employed 1,300 men had also be approved. All these could be undertaken by the existing owners with some assistance from the Government. That effort was just being got under way when the Labour Government fell, and I suggest that the present Government ought to recognise that work and proceed with it.
With regard to smallholdings, there were, just over a year ago, something like 10,000 waiting applicants throughout the country, and I would point out an advantage which the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs did not mention, and that is the large number of addi-
tional people who can be put on land when that land is turned into smallholdings. There were cases mentioned in this House on a previous occasion, where, on the Holbeach and Suttonbridge estates, before the land was converted into smallholdings, 490 men were employed on the land, and when it was converted no fewer than 1,227 occupied smallholdings. Similar figures could be given, if time permitted, as to eight, ten or a dozen large areas of land which have been converted into smallholdings. One came recently to my notice, where there were five families on a piece of land, and after it had been converted into smallholdings no fewer than 51 families were occupied and doing useful work.
I think the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture is very fortunate to have had, so to speak, all the donkey work done for him by the last Labour Government. The Land Drainage Act, the Land (Utilisation) Act, the Marketing Act, all provide a basis for work to be done and employment to be found, and the benefit of all those Acts that Government had not the opportunity to reap, but of which the right hon. Gentleman is fortunate enough to be in a position to take advantage. There can be no question that allotments are a useful and a social work of permanent value to the community, and that it can be carried out at an absolute minimum of cost. It has been estimated, though I think the figure is largely exaggerated, that if the Government tackled the allotment question with enthusiasm, by next spring 500,000 people could be supplied with allotments, and that they would produce something like £3,000,000 worth of food. As I say, I think that is rather an exaggeration, but that many thousands of people could be placed on allotments cannot be doubted. We have the advantage of the presence here of the right hon. Member for Northern Cornwall (Sir F. Acland), who, I believe, presides over the functions of the Allotments Society, and I feel sure that we should have his good offices, if the Government took up that work with enthusiasm, in providing allotments and in assisting in the provision of seeds, tools, and so on, as was the intention when the Land (Utilisation) Act, providing those facilities, was passed.

Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: I think we could do with 300,000 new unemployed men by the spring.

Major MILNER: We have the authority of the right hon. Baronet for saying that 300,000 could be settled on the land by way of allotments by next spring if the Government took up that work with enthusiasm. There is one more suggestion that I would put to the Government. I think the matter of credit to the farmer requires some attention. I had brought to my notice in the last few days the case of a farmer who required an overdraft for necessary development. He had an existing overdraft of £58. He went to the bank, and they refused him any further overdraft, although—and I have this independent evidence from an auctioneer and valuer, who told me the story—his stock, apart from anything else, was worth something like £1,200. The bank would not advance him a penny over the 58 that he had already had by way of overdraft, and I suggest that if the Government gave some encouragement to the banks to give better credit and at a lesser rate of interest than they are charging, it would be of very great advantage. If they believe in their policy, and if they believe that only time is necessary to bring it to full fruition, then they ought to take that step without delay.
There are three other questions to which I will briefly refer. First, there is the matter of hours of labour. I think one very valuable step would be for the Government at once to reverse their action with regard to the proposals made, or acceded to, by Italy for a reduction in the hours of labour. In the long run, I think we are bound to have some reduction in the hours of labour. Increased mechanisation and so forth will necessitate it, and I think the Government might take a useful step by helping those who are responsible for the proposal made at the International Labour Office, I think by Italy.
In the second place, I suggest that they might modify their so-called economy campaign and allow a little relaxation to municipal authorities. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said that municipal authorities had exhausted their resources both in work and in finance, but I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that he is mistaken in both those
respects. In the city of Leeds not a single piece of slum clearance work has been done by the present Conservative majority since the National Government came in, or, for that matter, since before the National Government came in, and not a single tender has been let this year, although there are thousands of applicants for houses. With regard to finance, within the last three days I spoke to one of the senior financial officers as to the position regarding money, and I was assured that they required none and that they had far more than they knew what to do with at the moment. Therefore, there can be no question that both in capital and in work that municipality, at any rate, has ample resources.
Finally, I had intended to make a suggestion as to restoring the price levels of 1928 by monetary action, but I will content myself by suggesting that at the forthcoming World Economic Conference, if I had any control over it, a much more foolish step might be taken than to collect together all the monetary experts of the central banks of Britain, the United States, and France, put them into a cell under an armed guard, and tell them that if they did not find a solution within seven days, they would be shot at dawn.

Captain McEWEN: My excuse for intervening in this Debate is that I happen to represent two of what are undoubtedly the finest farming counties in the length and breadth of Scotland. It is not my intention to harrow the feelings of the House with any description of the desperate plight in which agriculture finds itself in those two counties. That it can scarcely be exaggerated, no one knows better than my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, himself not only a borderer, but a practical farmer. It seems to be a melancholy fact, but one which must be faced, that there is little or nothing that this or any other Government could do at the present time completely to restore prosperity to agriculture, and I speak necessarily of practical steps, among which I do not place the proposals generally put forward by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery), urged on, as I have no doubt he is, by the serried and importunate ranks of the farmers and agricultural workers in the Sparkbrook Division of Birmingham.
But there are a few things the importance and urgency of which I would like to impress upon the Government at this time, and I do not claim for them any novelty. First, there is the implementing of that long-standing semi-undertaking to supply the armed forces of the Crown for at least six months in the year with home-killed meat. We understood that the reason given against that proposal was its expense, but if the expense, on the one hand, is balanced against the plight of the industry, on the other, I think there can no longer be any hesitation on that score. The second point is the introduction of a system of the licensing of butchers' shops for the sale of foreign meat. I do not suggest that the licence should be heavy or expensive, quite the contrary, but I would suggest that if the scheme came to be considered—and it is being much aired at the present time in the country—the penalty for a breach of the licence should be disproportionately heavy. Thirdly, I should like to see a very stringent regulation of the importation of potatoes, which is none the less called for when we consider the fact that at this season, in this particular year, we have in the present potato crop quite enough for our own needs, and rather more.
Lastly, a tax has often been asked for on imported malting barley. We were given to understand in this case that this could not be granted because there was the great difficulty of differentiation at the port of entry between malting barley and ordinary barley, but here again surely by this time, when so many experts have doubtless been expending time and energy for so many months on this question of differentiation, it should now be possible for us to have a definite reply. These are all measures which, while no one would pretend they were new or that they would bring immediate prosperity to the farming industry, at least would serve, and it seems to me that that is the important point which we have to get at to-night, to bridge over this period between now and the time, however far distant, when the benefits of the Government's long-distance policy will be fully felt.
I do not wish in any way to disturb the harmony of this Council of State. but we cannot expect that these measures, such as they are, would receive
the endorsement of the House in general; and we cannot expect the whole-hearted support, I fear, for all or perhaps any of them from the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who sit on the second bench below the Gangway opposite, but to them, and particularly to the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Isaac Foot), who is so fond of quoting Oliver Cromwell—and I plead that this is my first and last offence in this respect—I would quote the words of that very celebrated man addressed to the Scottish Kirk in 1650, when he said:
I beseech you, in the bowels of 'mercy', think it possible you may be mistaken.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. ROSBOTHAM: As a farmer, I welcome this Debate because the unemployment question is getting very serious and to pool our ideas must be of advantage. The large arable farmer is on the verge of ruin, and something will have to be done quickly to save him from disaster. The wheat quota will assist farmers in certain districts, but that is a Measure which acts very slowly. Barley needs attention, and that is a very important thing for some parts of the country, especially our farmers in Norfolk. Potatoes are sold to-day far below the cost of production. They are being put on rail at 1s. 9d. in my division, whereas the cost of production is 3s. 6d. per cwt. The cultivation of potatoes employs large numbers of men and a large amount of land. Surely it is in the interest of agriculture that the cultivation of this vegetable should be encouraged. We know that the growers have been trying to formulate a scheme under the Marketing Act for the better marketing of potatoes. I do impress upon the Minister of Agriculture that he should set up a commission to inquire into industry, and not wait for the growers, who cannot agree among themselves.
Stock farmers are facing bankruptcy. I was in the Dairy Show a few days ago. Looking round and seeing the splendid specimens of animals and those in charge of them, I came away with the impression that it was a matter of deep regret that any agricultural depression should exist at all. The Milk Commission Report is needed at once. We have waited with great patience, and we trust that when it comes it will be of benefit not
only to the producer but to the consumer. The Pig Commission Report has been received and, so far, I view that with favour because the principle involved in the report is a paying price to the producer of the bacon pig, based on the cost of production. That is really what we want. We are thankful to the Government for the grant in aid of allotments. I was against the curtailment of that grant last year because the allotment has a great moral effect upon the people, and it is a ladder which leads them to the smallholding or the larger farm. The revenue duties have improved the position of market gardening, and many are going into that kind of cultivation. On all hands we see more glasshouses being erected. I know of one person who six years ago bought 33 acres of land which, at that time, had a population of six persons, men, women and boys receiving the minimum wage of the agricultural committee. He built glasshouses and put the rest of the land under intensive cultivation. To-day 46 skilled men are engaged on these 33 acres and are receiving far above the minimum wage of the agricultural committee. The small dairy farmer near the town is holding his own. The poultry farmers are also making good.
I have risen in this Debate for the express purpose of referring to land settlement on three to five acres. It is a mistake to compare present-day land settlement with that of 1919 when land was dear and there was little choice of selection. The equipment was at war prices. Ex-service men were promised that they would have an opportunity of going on the land after they had fought for their King and country. They received intimation of that on the field of battle, and the promise that it would he carried out. The Government voted £21,000,000 as a war grant. The country has not lost that £21,000,000. It has lost £9,000,000 and, surely, the ex-service men are worth that £9,000,000. Many ex-service men are on the land to-day, and I know from my own experience that some of them have done very well. Today matters are very different with regard to creating holdings. We have the choice of the best land, and equipment costs are low. Self-supporting schemes can be brought forward to-day on an economic basis.
I have details of one such scheme in which the Lancashire County Council are negotiating for the setting up of smallholdings on an economic basis. Money expended on land and equipment now will bring a full return later. It is a good investment. Experience proves that land settlement colonies improve in value, and not only that but the surrounding districts develop as well. Soon you see a shop built and other developments of that kind. I have brought a few particulars with me which, I trust, will not weary the House. I give them because it is very important we should know whether at the present time land settlement is going to pay. The four cases which I propose to give are of varying types of holdings under the Lancashire County Council. The first case is of a holding at Hutton, near Preston. It has an area of four acres, and the rent is £35 per annum. The tenancy is for five years, and the tenant was an agricultural labourer. He started with 650 fowls and two poultry houses, and was in debt to the extent of £100. He has now 1,150 laying poultry and several good poultry houses, three milking cows, four heifers, two calves, three breeding sows, and 20 store pigs. He has erected his own cow-sheds and piggeries, and, in addition to paying his debts, he has spent from his profit £700 on buildings and equipment. He states that he has also £800 in the bank and invested. The second case is that of a holding of which the rent is £31 10s. The tenant started in 1929 and he has a stock now of 600 head of poultry, chiefly of Rhode Island Reds and white Wyandottes, eight geese and 10 pigs. This man is doing very well.
The third case is of a holding with a cottage and small outbuilding with an area of 5½acres, the rent being £31 17s. 6d. This man has a stock of 1,000 head of poultry comprising Rhode Island reds, white Wyandottes and Leg-horns, and two geese. He has well-lighted, roomy cabins for laying stock, brooders, incubating and rearing appliances, and a provender house. He obtained a certificate of merit at the L.U.P.S. laying test in 1932. The fourth holding is near Liverpool and consists of a cottage, small outbuildings, and 2½acres of land. The tenant started in 1912 with practically no capital, but had been brought up from boyhood as a
gardener. With the help of his wife, son, and daughter he has from a small beginning, year by year, increased his stock, including greenhouses and other buildings, until now he possesses well over £1,000 worth. In addition to other buildings he has six greenhouses and a motor wagon to take his produce to Liverpool market. He has recently opened a retail florist shop in the village, under `lie management of his daughter, for the purpose of selling produce grown on the holding. He does a large trade with a. large multiple firm in bedding-out plants and flowers. Four years ago he purchased his holding through the council under the 1926 Act. Some of the reasons for his success are that lie has personal character, possesses some business acumen and has the advantage of a good wife.
Now I come to some of our experiences regarding loans to ex-service men by this county council. The number of loans is 28 and the total amount advanced, £2,824. The amount repaid by these ex-service tenants is £2,457 10s., and only £304 is regarded as lost. An amount of £62 10.s., still outstanding on two loans, is regarded as a good debt. I have some figures here which show that the average cost per acre of one scheme of holdings, for land only, was £33, and, including buildings, £42. The cost of cottages and outbuildings was £515, and the annual loss was £6. In another case the cost of the land only was £48 per acre, and including buildings £62 per acre, the cost of cottages and outbuildings being £404. The annual loss was only £1. In a third case, of 11 holdings, also equipped by the committee of the Lancashire County Council, there is a gain of £4 per annum. That shows that it is possible to equip smallholdings on an economic basis. On an estate of the Lancashire County Council there was a population of 60 people in 1919. In February, 1930, the number had risen to 261. The most remarkable increase on these estates is in poultry. When the estate was bought there were 350 head of poultry on it. That number has increased to 27,500. In. a. census of the South Lathom No. 1 scheme, with an area of 289 acres, it is shown that in three years there has been an increase of population from 25 to 143. Here, again, there has been a great increase of poultry, for in 1929 there were only 100 head, and today there are 13,920 head. There is a cor-
responding increase in ducks, geese, turkeys, pigs and cattle.
I have also a table showing the occupation of men prior to taking up land work on the Lancashire County Council's equipped holdings up to five acres. Of 145 of these tenants, 35 were farm labourers, and 10 market gardeners. Other occupations which they had followed were those of poultry farmers, stock-keepers, accountants, blacksmiths, boilermen, brick-setters, builders, butchers, chemists' assistants, clerks, coal dealers, commercial travellers, cotton operatives, decorators, draughtsmen engineers, engine winders, foundry workers, game-keepers, general labourers, insurance agents, miners, motor drivers, painters, pipe-makers, plate-layers, plumbers, police pensioners, produce dealers, railwaymen, scavengers, schoolmasters, seamen, skepmakers, textile machinists, and turners. Of these 145 men, only 15 have been failures.
I should like to give some figures with regard to the production of eggs. In 1930 we imported 2,995,440,000 eggs in shell. Taking the average of 150 per hen, 20,000,000 hens would be required to produce that quantity. If we take the stock of a three-acre holding as 1,000 birds, 20,000 holdings comprising 60,000 acres would be required, and at a modest estimate 100,000 persons would be settled on the land to produce the quantity of eggs which we import each year. That does not include the number who would be engaged m building, equipment, and producing foodstuffs. It is clear that we could settle 1,000,000 persons on the land if we went in for producing all the eggs and all the tomatoes and other market gardening produce that we require. I am in favour of setting up marketing boards. We were interested in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). We are glad of his renewed interest in the cultivation of the soil. I remember not many months ago, when the right hon. Gentleman sat in the corner seat of the bench opposite, that he turned to the Conservative party and said: "This dumping must cease." He was received with loud cheers by the Conservative party. Does the right hon. Gentleman still hold the view that dumping must cease? If he does, he is
on the right track for bringing prosperity back to the land.
In "Labour and the Nation" import boards were mentioned, and I feel sure that, if the Labour party had not run away from office, that policy would have been carried out. Restriction of imports, revenue duties and quotas are required to enable the ciltivators of the soil to live. We are told that they will raise the cost of living. The true facts, however, are that the cost of living is down 10 per cent. to-day compared with 12 months ago, and if we produced more foodstuffs at home and restored prosperity to arable agriculture, to the stock farmer, and to the smallholder, the cost of production would still further be reduced. Land settlement in industrial counties has been more successful than in other counties. Mr. Jesse Collins, the pioneer in land settlement, advocated land settlement for two reasons, namely, to adjust the town and rural populations, and to mitigate unemployment. The rural population is essential in this country. Let the National Government have the courage to adopt a bold policy and to wait no longer; let them begin to act at once to save agriculture from disaster and ruin, remembering Dean Swift's words:
Whoever could make … two blades of grass to grow … where only one grew before would … do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.
If we can pool our ideas, and if by any means Parliament is able to double the output of the land, we shall he assisting to cure unemployment and doing our best for our country at large.

Major the Marquess of TITCHFIELD: I am sure that every hon. Member welcomes this Debate, and I should like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition on the excellent tone which he set to us all in his opening speech. The House has never, I think, been nearer a council of State than during this Debate. While I cangratulate the Leader of the Opposition on the excellent tone which he set, I am afraid that I cannot agree with everything that he put forward. The same applies to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). He likened my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Agri-
culture to a tractor—a very excellent simile. While the right hon. Gentleman was speaking, however, I likened him to a pre-historic bird, the chief characteristic of which was that it invariably flew backwards. When the right hon. Gentleman was speaking, he was flying backwards all the time to one or other of his Pink, Green or Yellow Books, which informed the country that he could cure unemployment in a year without the cost of a single shilling to the country. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman's speech wes very helpful. His Yellow Book, or whichever book it was, was turned down by the country by a large majority a few years ago, and it really is not any use the right hon. Gentleman going on flogging a dead horse.
The Leader of the Opposition remarked that new machinery added to unemployment, and he read a letter from a neighbour of mine in Nottinghamshire on that subject. I agree that new machinery often adds, for a short time, to unemployment, but it is true to say that unless machinery had been improved and science had advanced in the last 100 years, we should not have been able to clothe and feed—however inadequately it may be done to-day—the teeming millions who inhabit this country. I say that because there is a tendency among some of the followers of the Leader of the Opposition to discredit the use of new machinery. The right hon. Gentleman truly said that unemployment was a bad disease. Surely a doctor's mandate is the obvious policy to cure a political disease, and I think that on the whole the Government have used the right sort of medicine. Unemployment to-day is extremely severe, but there is a considerable silver lining to the cloud. For some years unemployment has been like a runaway horse. To-day, we see the pace of that horse checked and practically stopped. The figures issued by the Ministry of Labour to-day go to prove that. I believe that in a month or two the runaway horse not only will have been completely stopped, but will have had his head turned in the opposite direction
The Government were urged by the Leader of the Opposition to use the Agricultural Land (Utilisation) Act. Does he want to see a great many small landowners in this country? If he does,
I agree with him, for the more small landowners there are, the greater the stability of the country. It is no use, however, making thousands of small landowners until the tariff proposals and the Ottawa proposals have had time to bear fruit. I understand that it is the policy of the Government to raise wholesale prices. That is the right policy, but, if they raise wholesale prices, they will have to watch retail prices very closely. They will also have to consider the whole question of wages. If the wholesaler and the producer can make a better profit under the Government's schemes, it is only fair that the benefit of those profits should to a great extent be passed down to the people who are working with their hands in the factories and the mines. That is not Socialism; it is ordinary common sense. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Economic Conference should have been held earlier. I think that he is wrong. It would have been impossible to have had the Economic Conference before the Ottawa Conference, for the Ottawa Conference must be the foundation of all economic conferences in the future. The right hon. Gentleman was putting the cart before the horse.
7.30 p.m.
The right hon. Gentleman also said that the Government could never cure unemployment merely by moving industry from the north to the south. Of course, that is not the policy of the Government; their policy is to put a factory wherever it can get a market. The Leader of the Opposition wishes to see more men on the same job at the same rate of pay. That policy would be suicidal to the farmers. The big burden on farming is not rent, as hon. Gentlemen opposite so often think; it is the pay of the workers, and, if we make the farmers employ two or three men where they are employing only one, every farmer will go into liquidation. I understand that it is the policy of the Government to reduce the meat quota not only to the Empire, but to the foreigner. I think that the Minister of Agriculture has got the right end of the stick. The question of meat is not one alone for this country or for the Empire, but is a world question, and unless the wholesale price of meat can be put up all over the world we shall have the most appalling slump in world agriculture that this or any other generation
has ever seen. The introduction of the quota for Dominions supplies will undoubtedly hit the Dominions for a short time, but, taking the long view, I believe it will do the Dominions just as much good as it will do the farmers in this country and I would urge the Minister of Agriculture to continue his work on those lines. I think we are all delighted with the Government's wheat policy, and, as far as I can see, the report of the Lane-Fox Committee on the pig industry is an exceedingly useful one. I hope that when the next election comes along the farmers of this country will be able to say to my right hon. Friend: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." [Interruption.] Like Lady Godiva, I am now coming to my close, but I would just like to add this. It is true that the country is to-day in a parlous state, but I for one am not downhearted. We see a counter-attack on world economic depression being organised by the Government. We are mobilising the Dominions as they were mobilised in the War. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are coming to our help, and that means a great deal not only to us but to the world. Undoubtedly hard times have to be faced by the people of this country, but if the Government will only follow the policy which they have put before this House so often in the past, then, although many good men may fall by the way, I believe the victory of this country in the future will be absolutely assured.

Viscount ELMLEY: I am very glad that we have this opportunity of discussing agricultural problems, because although Ottawa Agreements may be made and though attempts may be made to unmake them, and although Liberal Ministers may come and Liberal Ministers may go, yet, unfortunately, these problems stay with us, and even grow very much worse. Further, I think that this House to-day is far more like a Council of State than it has been for some time, and if the House can only show itself to be a Council of State on this important matter it may extend that attitude to other problems also. Many abler people than I have stressed the very difficult position in which agriculture finds itself to-day, and so there is no necessity for me to do so. I had intended to bring to the notice of the House the quotations from to-day's
"Times," but that has already been done by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Molton (Mr. G. Lambert). It is not too difficult to understand how the farmer feels about things at present. He reads accounts of the Ottawa Conference in his newspaper, and of how our exporting industries are being given various concessions in different parts of the Empire—how their exporting agricultural industries are being given concessions here; and, except for the Article relating to meat restriction, he wonders where he comes in, for that Article, he feels, can only be in the nature of a long-distance remedy.
It is not only the farmers who are feeling very apprehensive, there are the labourers too. I very much hope that the report on unemployment insurance which is coming out to-morrow will not overlook the fact that many thousands of labourers are becoming unemployed who were never unemployed before, and that when the sugar beet season is over, and towards Christmas, even more will join the ranks of unemployed. I hope the Commission on Unemployment Insurance will make some recommendations about them. Then, prices are very low. Statements have appeared in the Press to-day, which I have been able to verify, stating that cattle sold in Norwich market last Saturday for 30s. per cwt. live weight. The price has never been so low before; and the same observation applies to many other agricultural products. Then there is the question of wages. The farmer now pays approximately 100 per cent. more than before the War. I do not for one moment think that the present wage is in any way too high. It is very difficult to live on 30s. a week, which is the pay in Norfolk at the present time. In this connection, perhaps I may be allowed just to mention the regretted death of the chairman of the Norfolk Wages Board, which occurred last week in the middle of very important negotiations. I hope that not only the Norfolk Wages Board, but wages boards everywhere else, will come to a decision not to reduce the wages of agricultural workers any further. The report of the committee set up to inquire into the pig-breeding industry ha-s only just appeared, and it will take time for its recommendations to be put into force. I congratu-
late the committee on having produced a good and useful report. Reports of other committees set up by the Government have not yet come to hand, and it is too early for the wheat regulation scheme to have come into full effect.
I would like to say a word about the tithe problem. I know that it affects different people in different parts of the country in different ways. The Commissioners of Queen Anne's Bounty made a beau geste during the summer; but I hope it will be found that they can go even still farther. The present position is that if extreme poverty is pleaded, and can be proved, a certain remission can be made. I would like them to recognise the fact that though the value of tithe is fixed, yet the conditions under which it was fixed are constantly changing, and during the last two years have become steadily worse. It ought not to be beyond their ability to provide some sort of sliding scale with the annual value of land as the basis. I do not know whether I should be in order in making a reference to the fishing industry, but it comes under the purview of the Minister of Agriculture. There again we have a very serious condition of affairs. Many fishermen are already unemployed, and others, instead of corning back in a month or so with a comfortable sum of money to their credit, will return with practically nothing at all. That affects not only East Anglia but also, to a very large degree, Scotland, and I hope that by commercial treaties or otherwise we shall be able to enlarge the herring market, of which we have lost so large a part since the War.
There are two bright spots in the industry which I will bring to the attention of the House, though they are not nearly so large as I would like to see them. In going about my Division, which is an entirely agricultural one, I have found several instances in which holdings of about three acres are being worked well and profitably. It is said sometimes that to make a success of a smallholding one has to be an absolute slave, working 13 hours a day. That may be so in some cases, but I have seen instances where that has not been necessary, though certainly hard work and intelligence are required. Those are cases where there is a silver lining to the cloud of depression. The other bright spot is provided by the sugar beet industry, which, of course, is
subsidised. Arguments are put forward by some people that it would be cheaper not to have any sugar beet industry at all, but just to subsidise people in various parts of the country. I do not believe that argument to be true, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not listen to any such suggestion, because at this moment the sugar beet industry is helping a very large number of people, especially in East Anglia. One factory in my Division is now employing 900 people; and working day and night; and one must also take into consideration the number of people who find employment in sowing, growing and hoeing the beet, and even in collecting it and carting it to the factory. The argument that the subsidy is an uneconomic proposition is an instance of where a case may be made out in theory but is not established in practice. Anyone who comes to my part of the country and examines the position thoroughly will seem that it has been a tremendous benefit.
I would like to sum up by saying that the agricultural problem is one very largely of co-ordination. On the one hand we have our wheat and other products waiting to be sold—there is no question of any scarcity of them—and on the other hand there are millions of people in this country who are living far too near the starvation line. It ought not to be beyond the wit of man to see that these commodities are produced in the right quantities for the people who need them, and are sold to them at a price which is not only fair to them but will also reward the producer. I believe that to be just a question of co-ordination. It may be argued that the Roman Empire came to a bad end over co-ordination, but times have changed, and with all the knowledge of science that we possess we ought not to make a failure of co-ordination at the present day. During the last three years the agricultural barometer has gone down from change to stormy, but I hope that in the next three years it will go up again. One of the greatest hopes I have is that, after two or three years of this Government, the agricultural industry will be in a very much better position than it is at the present time.

Sir DOUGLAS NEWTON: I regret that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd
George) is no longer in his place, because I should like to tell him that those of us who listened to his speech were delighted to realise that he has returned to good health and that we have his great figure again our midst. I was particularly pleased to see that he is taking an interest in the industry of agriculture. He made an eloquent plea for the provision of more smallholdings, and he deplored the dependence which this country has had in the past upon industry and shipping. I am sorry that he did not take some steps, during the long years in which he had power and office, to do something to assist the agricultural industry. Why did he not restrict the flood of imports into this country of products which could have been produced by our people? I hope that steps will be taken to promote smallholdings, but there are several important qualifications which must be rigorously enforced. The land must be suitable, the men must know their jobs, and there must be profitable markets in which the smallholders can sell their goods.
Those of us who have taken part in this Debate upon the needs of agriculture are not unmindful or unappreciative of the part which the National Government have played during the past two or three months. It is barely 12 months since the National Government came into office and since hon. Members on the other side threw up the sponge and refused to carry on. There are now many hopeful signs on the agricultural horizon. The Import Duties Act, the Horticultural Products (Emergency Customs Duties) Act have been passed, and have given a considerable measure of assistance. Moreover, they indicate a change of outlook. They have enabled acres of glass to be erected and bulb farms to be started, and progress has been made in many directions. These Acts have resulted in increasing the revenue by £14,000,000, and this revenue has been raised without any burden being felt by the people of this country. Since those Acts were imposed, the Ottawa Conference has been held. In spite of what is being said in some quarters, I suggest that a very real and definite success was achieved by that Conference. At any rate, the economic unity of the Empire has been attained. The Conference had to face up to some very hard and difficult facts. They made
concrete recommendations, and did not content themselves with passing Resolutions, and a new and splendid chapter in the relationships of the agriculturists of the Empire has been opened up.
We agriculturists went to Ottawa more or less upon the defensive in order to see that our market was not stolen from us, and that our farmers received fair play. As a result of that Conference, some definite principles have been recognised. Producers in this country are to have the first claim in their own home market. At the same time nothing has been done in any way to prejudice the position of the home producer. No arrangements or agreements have been entered into which in any way prevent a vigorous home agricultural policy being developed. If such a policy is developed, we know now that steps have been taken to enable us to see that that policy shall not be frustrated by unwelcome state-run interference on the part of other countries. It is up to us to see that we do not have our policy frustrated or interfered with in a way which will harm our industries. It is true, looking at it from the agricultural point of view, that we failed to get all that we hoped for from the Ottawa Conference, though the representatives of the National Farmers' Union at that Conference, Captain Morris and Mr. Baxter, certainly did all they could to press the case of agriculture in the most helpful way.
Since that Conference, there has been a disastrous fall in the price of meat. I believe that I am right in saying that the wholesale price of meat, taking all things into account, has fallen, on the average, something like 2d. per lb. For the first time since 1914, the index figure has fallen below 100. Fat cattle prices fell, during October, 10 points, and fat sheep prices 17 points. According to official figures issued by the Ministry of Labour, the present index figure for fat sheep is 83, for bacon pigs 82, for pork 88, for hay 67, and for wool 62, as compared with the corresponding months of October during 1911 to 1913. The range of prices received by producers is altogether out of proportion to the expenses entailed in production. While there has been this disastrous and unexpected fall in wholesale agricultural prices, the main item of the farmers'
expenditure remains fixed. The farmer therefore must either get more for his agricultural products or he will have to dismiss many of his men.
Hon. Members are being inundated with letters from men of good type, excellent farmers, pointing out that, unless something is done immediately, the staple industry of agriculture must collapse. Immediate action is pressed upon this House. Meat producers are being driven to bankruptcy by the present unparalleled low prices. I do not think that we on this side of the House care very much whether the problem is dealt with by quota, regulation, restriction, or tariffs, but action must be taken without delay. Unemployment is already showing its ugly head more and more in the agricultural industry. When the sugar crop has been harvested and the potatoes have all been gathered, there will be wholesale dismissals. Be it remembered that there is no State insurance for the agricultural labourers. The long-term Government policy will, I believe, prove effective and will do much for the industry of agriculture. But the horse looks like starving while the grass is growing.
May I say a word about agricultural credits. It is necessary that the Government should intervene in this matter. Wages must be paid. There is something different, something almost sacred, in the payment of wages. Wages mean families and homes. Wages only appear on a labour sheet as mere figures, but what are wages in practice? Bread, coal, babies' cradles, milk, children's education, family life and family happiness. The wage pay-roll must be maintained. If you drag down the wages of the agricultural worker, as you assuredly will if you refuse to assist the agriculturist, that will inevitably be followed by a general reduction in the wage rates of other workers in other branches of industry. Therefore, I maintain that it is in the general national interest that agriculture should be placed upon a satisfactory and profitable basis, and that the wages of the agricultural workers should not be reduced, but should, if anything, be increased.
So far as the financial side of farming is concerned, the banker cannot fairly be held free from criticism. A farmer who went to a bank and obtained a loan, a year or so ago, repaid the annual interest
and the sinking fund on that loan by the sale of a couple of sheep and the sale of four or five sacks of wheat. Now he is expected to send on four or five sheep, and not one sack of wheat, but 10 or 12 sacks. It is up to the banking interest to arrange for repayments at a uniform rate and value, and to find a means for the farmers to repay at a uniform rate and not to be called upon for a year or two, through no fault of their own, to repay on a very much wider and larger basis. We await with great interest an announcement of the Government's policy. I would again stress that the situation is urgent, and that something must be done to protect the agriculturist who is under the black cloud of unregulated imports. The Government should work out a plan which will be appropriate to the circumstances and in accordance with the urgent needs of our day.

8.0 pm.

Mr. MORRISON: The whole House has welcomed this opportunity of contributing ideas towards the solution of what is undoubtedly a very difficult, and indeed tragic, problem. In this most interesting Debate, facets of the agricultural situation have been lighted up by hon. Members. Many topics of interest to agriculture have been dealt with. The hon. and gallant Member for South East Leeds (Major Milner) made a speech which was both excellent and good tempered. It was a sincere contribution to the Debate. It is true that he took the opportunity of praising the activities of the Government which he supported in the last Parliament, in contradistinction to those of this Government, but he disarmed any criticism by describing that work as "donkey work." The interesting part of his speech, coming from those benches, was his reference to import boards. He criticised the policy which we on this side of the House have adopted for regulating imports by means of tariffs and quotas, and said that he preferred import boards, because, he said, in a time of falling prices like this, it is impossible to work a tariff or a quota with any accuracy. There is one respect in which a quota or a tariff is better than an import board in a time of falling prices. Had we had an import board a year ago, charged with the duty of buying up, let us say, meat, to feed the population of these islands, we should now be showing on the accounts of that Government in-
stition a huge loss running into millions of pounds. Though I have that criticism to level against the suggestion of import boards, I welcome it, equally with the Measures proposed from this side of the House, because it recognises the necessity of some restriction of imports. We have only a very small number—a mere rump—of Members in this House now who suppose that agriculture can flourish if unrestricted foreign competition is maintained. That is a step in the right direction, but, in a Debate like this, when we are pooling our ideas, it is, I think, a good thing that we should see the similarities between the policies which we advocate rather than the points of difference. Several speakers in the Debate to-day have advocated the establishment of smallholdings on a large scale as one of the best ways of getting rid of the unemployment problem as a whole, and of agricultural depression as a secondary consideration, and the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Rosbotham) gave us some admirable figures with regard to successful smallholdings within his knowledge. The interesting thing, however, about those holdings was that in the case of every one of them which was such a, triumphant success, the smallholder was originally an agricultural labourer, or a gardener, or at least someone whose early training and nurture had been upon the land on which he was then trying to make a living.
There is no doubt that, as was pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), the figures for the smallholdings established by our county councils—he mentioned Shropshire, but there are others that are just as good—show excellent results. It cannot, however, be too emphatically urged that those excellent results which have been achieved have been achieved because the county councils responsible have exercised the utmost care in the selection of the men, the selection of the soil, and the equipment, and have nourished the infant enterprise of smallholdings in a thoughtful and considerate manner.
It is a very different proposition when from this particular success you plunge at once into the wide generalisation that you can settle a million men on the land in a very short time. The root problem
remains: How are you to settle men on the land with any prospect of success for themselves or of alleviation of the unemployment problem when those on the land are not able to make a living? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, with great candour, posed that question, but with great ingenuity he omitted to answer it. He gave us no indication as to how the object was to be achieved. Listening to his speech, it, seemed to me that we are in danger of losing our perspective over this matter. Agriculture is not an industry which is capable of great and sudden expansion. We are not faced in the agricultural world with the position of having a flourishing industry that can take on additional men. The trend is not towards the land, but away from the land, and I suggest that the problem with which we have immediately to concern ourselves is not that of getting more men on to the land from the towns, but that of trying to hold some of the men that we have and to prevent them from going into the towns.
I know that in this over-urbanised community of ours the question of rural unemployment is very apt to he neglected. Its victims do not figure in those lists which are compiled under the Unemployment Insurance Acts; nor do they organise, or have organised for them, demonstrations such as those with which this House has become familiar. But I think it will be within the knowledge of the House that the agricultural worker who loses his work and goes on to the Poor Law suffers, it may be in rural solitude, quite as severely as any unemployed artisan in the town. Indeed, he has not the distractions of the town, but, on the other hand, he has before him the sight, which must fill the countryman's heart with sorrow, of the land which it is his business to tend and serve going to ruin before his eyes for lack of his labour.
We are agreed upon the principle in this House—always excepting those benches below the Gangway which are vacant at the moment—that some restriction of imports must be undertaken if agriculture is ever, as an industry, to make a contribution that is not less than nothing to the unemployment problem of this country. I know that there are differences of opinion as to how that restriction should be applied. As we are
here pooling our ideas, and as in speaking in the House one has to follow one's own lights or speak falsely, I say that I am an unregenerate believer in the principle of regulation by means of a tariff. To my mind, uninstructed as it may be, that seems more likely to produce successful results than any other method. I am not going into the question at large, but I frankly admit that I somewhat dread the complications of the quota system. As regards a tariff, there is a consideration which appeals perhaps particularly to one of my race, and that is that a tariff brings in revenue. I am not so sure that a quota will do that.
I quite realise that there may be considerations of general policy which prevent the Government from following What I think is the right course, but the important thing is that we should take some steps to restrict meat importations as soon as possible, in order to save that side of the industry from ruin. Let us remember that there is no part of the agricultural group of industries which can be better carried on in this country than the meat part. There is no part of the world which has the same natural qualifications for stock raising as we have, and, if the meat industry is not paying, it is idle to suppose that other branches of the industry, for which by nature we are not so well suited, can ever be in a flourishing condition. As to the question of wholesale prices, and the question of the influence upon retail prices of any raising of wholesale prices, I have here two lists, the one—a sea-green, innocent-looking one—being a retail list, and the other a price-list obtained this morning from a big firm of wholesale meat producers. These lists show that, for imported meat, taking comparable qualities, the wholesale prices ranged from 6d. per lb. for the best to 2d. for the worst. The retail price list—and these retail prices are low, being those of a big department store—shows that, for the same meat which costs, wholesale, 6d. and 2d. per lb., the retail prices are 1s. 4d. and 7d. respectively. Supposing that a duty was put on, would it raise the retail price? Clearly, these figures show that the retail price is not determined by the wholesale price at all; there is too big a gap between the two for them to have any relation the one to the other.
These lists will show, on further investigation, what does fix the retail price of imported meat. It is when you look at the price of home-grown meat that you see the answer. The retail prices of homegrown meat of the same quality range from 2s. to 8d. per lb., or, in other words, the price of the imported article when sold retail is pushed up until it just competes with the British article. Supposing that the wholesale prices were raised by a tax of so much a pound, there would still he, governing the price of imported meat, the competing influence of the cheaper joints of British meat, and the result would only be to diminish to some degree the tremendous profit that is now being made on the sale of imported meat, and, by that amount, to diminish the overwhelming attraction which imported meat has for the butcher. The butcher who sells imported meat does not have the same bother that the English butcher has in disposing of his worst joints, or of cutting up the meat and disposing of the offal. He can buy imported meat and have it dumped at his shop by lorry in exactly the cuts that he requires, already cut up. He need not have the bad joints; he can order what he likes; and the prices, as I have said, are, at the highest, 6d. per lb., going down to 2d.
These are the considerations to which I want to direct the attention of the Government. There may, as I have said, be considerations of general policy which prevent my ideas on this matter from being the right ones; I am not so sure that I know as much as the Government as some people are; but the important thing is that there should be some restriction. Whatever long-range policy of that kind the Government have in view, what I am anxious about, and what has caused me to intervene, is the question of the coming winter. We are now eight weeks from Christmas, and, from what I have seen of the agricultural industry and of the state of England in rural areas during the past year, I am afraid it is going to be, for many a good fellow, a very hard Christmas. Men are being turned off the land because the farmers cannot keep them on, and, when a man goes off his work in agriculture, he goes to the Poor Law. It is for that reason that I would ask the Government to make some contribution towards the employment in useful work of agricultural workers in this country.
I would ask hon. Members who, perhaps, have not much experience of the agricultural industry, to remember one important fact. Hon. Members from urban divisions sometimes ask me, "Why do you make so much of a song about agriculture? Other industries are suffering badly also." There is one great difference between agriculture and an urban industry, such as the cotton industry, and that is that the employer in agriculture is not permitted, by the nature of things, to turn men off in the same light-hearted, or heavy-hearted, way in which an industrial employer can. Quite apart from sentimental considerations which bind master and man together, and which, I am glad to say, are still very strong in the country, it is not possible to reduce a farm to a care-and-maintenance basis as you would a factory. You can shut up your factory and put on a night-watchman to go round and oil a few things every now and again, and it remains, comparatively speaking, undeteriorated during that process, and can be restarted with the return of trade. With a farm it is quite different. If you have land, you must keep it clean, or it goes back to jungle. You must continue to employ men on it. If you have beasts, they must be fed and tended, or they not merely deteriorate—they die. And the effect of the distress in agriculture, leading to unemployment, is not quite like it is in any other industry, because the labour and skill that have been expended on the land for generations may be wasted in a period of one or two years by the land slipping back into jungle.
There is work to be done, and there are men anxious to do it. I admit that the question is a difficult one, but I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture to concert, if he can, with his colleagues the Minister of Health and the Minister of Labour, and see whether it would not be possible at once to devise some scheme by which wages could be made up, so that men could be employed on that work of ditching, hedging, draining and so on without which the land must deteriorate. I hear it said: "This is a Speenham-land proposition. You are going back to the old scheme under which the justices of Speenhamland paid wages out of the poor rate." That is not the scope of my proposition at all. Let us remember that
in the matter of agricultural wages, this House has an obligation to the industry. It has established minimum wages, but has not taken sufficient steps to put the industry in a position to pay them, and the difference between the economic wage and the statutory wage has been made up out of the pockets of farmers and landlords. Now the resources are gone, the men are being turned off, and the land is going down.
I think the country is a very different place from the town in more than one respect, and I believe that, with the small local government units that you have in the country, and with their intimate knowledge of the problem and the personnel involved, you would have a control that would prevent abuses of that kind. This is not a question of making up the wages of men still in work, but of taking men who are now out of work, who must receive doles of some sort or another during the winter, and using the money, not to keep them in idleness, but to make up the statutory wage which the House has determined should be paid to the agricultural workers. It is an entirely different proposition from the old idea of the justices of Speenhamland, who had no defence then against the unscrupulous employer who paid low wages knowing that they would be made up out of the poor rate. Here you would have sufficient local knowledge and control to guard against any abuses of that kind, and it is not, as it was then, working for private employers. It is work of national importance. It may be said it would benefit the farmer, but what if it does benefit the farmer and benefit the land? It will save a national asset which has been built up through generations of toil and skill. Look at the state of the land to-day. It is like looking at a factory which has been shut up, but a little different. It is as if you were seeing a factory with the tiles falling off the roofs, and as if you saw the machinery inside it not merely losing its polish but becoming visibly contorted into a shapeless, valueless mass.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: What about good will?

Mr. MORRISON: Any amount of good will is required on all sides of the House to tackle the problem in anything like an
adequate manner. The Government ought to consider whether it would not be possible to use men who will otherwise be unemployed this winter in putting these matters forward. We can at least say that the justices of Speenhamland were actuated by a sense of social justice and responsibility for one's neighbours. If we can emulate their spirit while avoiding their mistakes in this matter, I believe we shall be acting in perfect harmony with the soundest traditions of this country. These are the two suggestions that I would make. I would ask the Government to take steps to restrict the importation of meat, and, if they put a tax on meat, let them remember that it will be felt less, will bring in more revenue, and do more good than a tax on beer, which is at present depriving men of employment, drying up a source of revenue, and is being felt severely by those who regard it as their chief luxury after toil.
While these schemes are hatching to perfection in the mind of the Minister of Agriculture, I hope he will consult with his friends and see whether he cannot immediately devise a scheme by which it will be possible to pay men for doing work of national importance, work which will be better for themselves, work they are skilled in doing and ready to do rather than allow them to subsist entirely in idleness over the coming winter. I do not propose any new scheme which means the organisation of vast gangs of men to be used in engineering achievements of which the world will hereafter be proud, but merely to use men under these local authorities to prevent a great asset to the land of England being lost. I know t is very much easier to make a speech than to carry a scheme of that character into operation. I am not ignorant enough of the scope of these matters not to see the difficulties in them. I believe this Problem of unemployment, whether one looks at it from the urban or the agricultural side, will not be solved by anything easy at all, and I would urge that some steps be taken to examine a proposal of that character.

Mr. EDWARD WILLIAMS: Does the hon. Member imply a 100 per cent. grant to be given to the local authority?

Mr. MORRISON: The hon. Member is mistaking me. The sort of scheme that I have in view is that it shall be made
possible for local authorities who bring work that they can show to the satisfaction of the Government is necessary in their districts, and can show the number of men who will be unemployed throughout the winter, to get the money which would otherwise be expended in poor relief or unemployment benefit to make up the wages of these men to the statutory level and use them for this work instead of letting them remain idle. I will not deal with that to-night. I merely put it forward. I ask that we should take this matter into consideration and see whether it is not possible to do something before winter comes to save these men from a lot which will otherwise be very hard.

Mr. R. W. SMITH: I should like to draw attention to the position of agriculture in Scotland, and especially to the position of the agricultural workers, who are unfortunately becoming a diminishing number. We want to see that drift away from the agricultural districts stopped; in fact, something more than that. We want to see them coming back to the land. A great deal of lip-service is given to agriculture, but I think the House is apt to forget in what a serious position Scottish agriculture is at present. The last return of the Department of Agriculture states that the arable area of land in Scotland is 3,051,000 acres, which is 10,000 acres less than last year and the lowest acreage for arable land since statistics were first taken if you take the amount of land under crops and grass, it is some 4,000,000 acres, 8,000 acres less than last year and the lowest figure there has been since 1876. We also have fewer horses and cattle. There are 3,000 fewer workers than there were last year. This is a picture of the state of affairs in Scotland at the present time, and it is a very gloomy one indeed. Unless something is done immediately to put our agricultural industry once again on its feet there will be a tremendous collapse throughout the country. We have listened to-day to a speech from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). He told us that he wanted to see something like 3,000,000 people on the land in this country, but he gave us no idea how these people would be kept upon the land once they had got there. He made no
proposals whatever nor showed how they were to make farming pay, and that is what we want.
I wish to make one or two suggestions to the Government. I am very sorry that the Minister of Agriculture is not here, because he knows the agricultural situation in Scotland as well as in England, and I am sorry that there is no Member on the Front Bench representing the Scottish Office to deal with the Scottish position. It is rather a strange thing that we should be dealing with such an important matter as the agricultural industry of the country and yet there is no one on the Front Bench able to reply for Scotland. The first point I would impress upon the Government is the question of credits for agriculture. I was very much surprised that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs did not mention the question of credits, for he told us—I have heard him speak in this House on the question—not very long ago that what was keeping down the agricultural industry was the lack of money in the industry. He told us that the landlords and the farmers had no money, and that what was wanted in the industry was money. Therefore, I should have thought that he would have pressed in his speech for further credits for agriculture in order that the industry might be conducted properly, but we did not hear a word about it.
8.30 p.m.
I have heard members of the Socialist party state that credits for agriculture were wanted. The late Minister of Agriculture himself, when introducing a Bill, stated that further capital was wanted in the industry. We have heard nothing from hon. Members nor from the Government. Why will not they back us up? There are many of us on this side of the House who have been pressing the Government for credits for agriculture. Why have we not received backing from the Socialist benches seeing that hon. Members opposite have said that credits are necessary for agriculture? Why did not the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs also mention the question of credits? I would impress upon the Government the great need at the present time for some assistance being given to agriculture. I especially emphasise my appeal because of the position with regard to the question of credits in Scotland. A Bill was passed to grant
agricultural credits for long and short terms for England, and the Measure is working at the present time. In 1929 a Bill for Scotland on the same lines was passed by the Government, but the Measure is not yet working, and consequently Scottish agriculture has not been getting the advantage from credits which its neighbour in England has been getting. It seems to be most unfair. The Government at that time guaranteed £125,000 towards the Corporation, but we in Scotland have not been getting the use of that money. I have pressed this matter on the House at various times. Last May I was told by the then Secretary of State for Scotland that the negotiations with the four participating banks had been concluded, and he hoped that the banks would be able to arrange for incorporation of the company at an early date. At the end of June I was told that the Department were fully alive to its importance, and that the right hon. Gentleman hoped that the period of delay had now come to an end. On 12th July last I asked the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury, now the Minister of Agriculture, whether the formal documents setting up the Agricultural Security Company under the Agricultural Credits (Scotland) Act had yet been approved by the Treasury, and the reply he gave was,
Yes, Sir."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th July, 1932; col. 1099, Vol. 268.]
Yet at the present time the Corporation is not working and the farmers of Scotland are unable to obtain either the long-term credits or the short-term credits provided under the Act. I ask the Government to give us an assurance that these credits will be made available and that we in Scotland shall get fair treatment.
I would say a word or two in regard to the question of cats. We in North-East Scotland, especially from where I come, are practically unable to grow any of the crops which receive assistance, such as wheat or sugar-beet. The principal agricultural products of North-East Scotland are meat, oats and barley, and potatoes to a certain extent, and in respect of none of these products is there any assistance given by the Government, except to the extent of the 10 per cent. duty on oats, which, I maintain, is not sufficient. In other parts of the country they are able to grow other crops, such
as sugar-beet and wheat, and although our position is as serious as theirs, and has been for some time, we have not similar advantages. What should we do for oats? We ought to have a larger tax on foreign oats coming into the country. We were told by the Leader of the Conservative party, and, I believe, by the then Minister of Agriculture that they were aware of the serious position of the oat-growers of the country owing to the dumping of foreign oats. We were assured that some steps would be taken to prevent that contingency, but so far nothing has been done except the imposition of a 10 per cent. duty, which is not sufficient to keep the foreigner out.
We require a further duty on oats. The present duty of 10 per cent. is not having an effect, because on 5th November this year the average price of oats in Scotland was 5s. 6d. per cwt., against 7s. per cwt. at the same time last year. Therefore, the price is coming down in spite of the 10 per cent. duty. Our farmers would be able to supply all the oatmeal required from home-grown oats, and I fail to see why the Government cannot take steps to see to it that the foreigner is prohibited from sending oats into the country. It would prove of great advantage to the farmers in this country, and especially to the Scottish farmers.
It has taken the Government a very long time to decide whether they would do anything with regard to the question of malting barley. We were given to understand at the election that the Government would give consideration to the question, but nothing has been done. Therefore, one is entitled to ask the Government to give information as soon as possible wtih regard to the question of a tax on foreign barley. There is an Order in force which prohibits the millers of this country from bleaching pearl barley with sulphur dioxide. The millers of the country are not able to produce pearl barley for the market here; at the same time foreign pearl barley is coming into the country and being sold. I am given to understand that pearl barley is bleached by means of sulphur dioxide, and that before it is sent over here the foreigner manages in some way to remove the sulphur dioxide. It may be said that it is for the health of the nation that we should prevent them using sulphur dioxide. I would point out, however, that sulphur dioxide
is allowed in sausages and in fruit pulp. In the case of fruit pulp for the making of jam it is said that the sulphur dioxide is removed in cooking. It is not a common thing for people to eat pearl barley raw, uncooked. If sulphur dioxide is allowed in fruit pulp, why should it not be allowed in the case of pearl barley? If the Government will not allow sulphur dioxide to be used for pearl barley, they ought to prohibit foreign pearl barley and make the people use home-grown barley. It will not be so white, but its greater consumption will be an enormous advantage to the millers and agricuturists at the present time, who cannot find a market for their barley.
Take the question of potatoes. The potato crop has dropped to a price which is unremunerative. We had at first a small duty on foreign potatoes, which was afterwards raised to £1. The duty of £1 on foreign potatoes is not enough, and we are entitled to ask the Government at once to do something more in this respect. The question of meat is of vital importance, especially in my part of the world, which is the most important meat-producing county in the whole country. The Government have admitted by what has been said in Debates lately that they realise the serious position of the meat producers at the present time. It is much more serious than it was at the time of the Ottawa Conference. If they do realise the seriousness of the problem they must realise that something must be done immediately if that industry is to survive. I hope they will not keep us waiting long. We have asked for a statement of the Government's agricultural policy on several occasions.
To-day, we were told by the Prime Minister that the Minister of Agriculture will more clearly put forward the views of the Government on their policy. I sincerely hope that that policy will be one that will bring hope and brightness to the farmers who are in a very depressed condition. The Prime Minister gave a warning when he made his statement to-day which rather distressed me. He said that other duties would he adapted to other points as soon as necessary where a case could be made out, but that agriculture must prove that it is using all its opportunities for its improvement. Agriculture for the last few years has shown that it is using all its opportunities. It has been doing more than
that. It has been using the money earned in more prosperous years to keep going, and has practically used up all that money. Unless the Government can do something that will prevent the industry from being swamped by unfair foreign competition, I am afraid that nothing will save it. For these reasons I do ask the Government to do something very tangible for the agricultural industry, and to do it at once.

Mr. CHRISTIE: Norfolk has been very much in the picture, owing to the very admirable article in the "Times" this morning. I will not, therefore, say too much about the conditions there, except to emphasise the opinion of the writer of that article that the conditions in Norfolk are appalling. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer was speaking the other night he said that the Government appreciated the critical situation of the industry. I cannot help wondering whether the Government really do appreciate the position, even now. The measure of their appreciation is likely to be the remedies which they seek to apply, and as none of those remedies are likely to begin before the 1st January next and will not be very effective until pretty well the end of 1933, it seems to me that the Government are not appreciating the appalling pass into which the industry has fallen.
It is obvious that agriculture as we used to know it is simply and absolutely a thing of the past. Owing to the many handicaps of the industry, the handicap of the Wages Board, of hours, of regulations, of rent, tithe and also of climate, our competitors overseas, I think it can be said definitely, are able to produce everything that we produce more cheaply than we can do in this country. Therefore, if agriculture is to continue to flourish it is obvious that a complete and comprehensive policy must be evolved that will make up to the farmer for these handicaps, under which he is carrying on his business at the present time. There is not only the question of meat but of everything that the farmer grows. Wheat and sugar beet have been dealt with. It would go to the hearts of hon. Members if they would come to Norfolk and see the hundreds of stacks of barley for which at the present time there is no market whatever. The continuance of
the high tax on beer has killed the market for barley for malting—absolutely dead. The sheep industry is practically dead. We have had details of the prices, which show that every form of meat is now being sold absolutely at a loss.
I do not think the Government realise that the only thing we want as representatives of the farmers is an immediate policy that will restore the confidence of the banks and the ability of the farmer to be able to pay his way again. The test of the Government's proposals would be to take them to a typical country banker and ask that banker whether as a result of those promises he would extend the farmer's credit. Does any hon. Member believe that if he went either with the Ottawa Agreements or with the pig policy of the Government, which will begin to operate, I suppose, next July, or the suggested scheme about the Argentine, of which I read in the press last week, that hanker would extend the farmer's credit on the basis of that? I do not believe that there would be one penny piece granted to him, and I do not think there is the slightest chance of a single man being kept on work as a result of those promises.
Hon. Members have asked: Cannot the farmer be given money just to tide him over this winter, and cannot schemes be arranged to enable the agricultural worker to be kept at work of some sort and not be turned over to the public assistance committees? The best method of all is to restore the confidence of the bankers so that the whole machine will go on and these dismissals will not take place. That is what we want. We want at once a policy which will start the whole system of credits once more. An hon. Member who represents a Scottish constituency made a very good suggestion, with which I entirely agree. When you are dealing with meat the first thing to do is to clear up the hopeless muddle into which the meat distributing industry of this country has got. It is hopelessly wrong that practically the whole of the imported meat comes into the Port of London, where there is less unemployment than in any other port. It is also absolutely wrong that during the first nine months of this year no less than 84 per cent. of the meat sold in Smithfield Market should be imported meat. Can it be seriously suggested that London and its neighbouring districts is so
desperately hard up that only 16 per cent. of its population can afford to buy English meat? No one would make such a suggestion; and the hon. Member's suggestion that foreign meat should only be sold in licensed shops is an admirable one, and would clear up all doubts as to whether foreign meat is not sold and charged as English meat. It would at any rate clarify the situation and we should have some idea as to where the foreign meat was going and also where the English meat was going.
But that is not enough. We most certainly want some method of raising the wholesale prices of meat, and for my part I do not mind how it is achieved so long as it is achieved at the earliest possible moment. I would even favour a much more drastic method of attacking it than hon. Members have suggested. I should be strongly in favour of an attempt to deal with the situation by fixing prices. I am told that this is a desperately Socialist plan and one which is only adopted in war time to prevent the farmer exploiting the general consumer. But we have got something very comparable to that condition, only it is the other way round. For a good many years past the consumer has been exploiting the farmer, there is no question about that, because they have been getting meat below cost price, and it is only reasonable to fix prices in order to give the farmer a chance.
Let me suggest a way in which we might proceed to do this. If we had the, wand of a magician and could say that on Monday morning a regulation would be passed which would entail that foreign meat must be sold at not more than 6d. less per pound than English meat I believe we should have gone far towards solving the problem. The immediate result would be to give the importer a real interest in keeping up the price of home produced meat, an interest which he has never had before. He has never cared how much importations were sent in at present prices, but if he was never allowed to sell his meat at a price which was more than 6d. below the price of English meat he would immediately have such an interest in the price of home meat that he would limit his importation of foreign meat to within the deficiency of our own supplies instead of doing for our market what he is at the present
time. I think such a method would be even more effective than a tariff or a quota, because it would keep on working so as to give a continuous price on which farmers could make a living, and the farmer could with confidence fill up his yards with cattle if he knew that such a, scheme was in operation.
When I go down to my constituency, as I do every week-end, I find my friends and neighbours getting more and more into difficulties. As a result of falling prices I find that there are more and more bankruptcies, more and more men going out of business, and more and more agricultural workers, who have been on farms all their lives and their fathers before them, being turned off and becoming a charge on the public assistance committee. I find also a tendency for the rates to rise with the result that small shopkeepers and public house keepers, who have had bad enough times lately, merchants and auctioneers, in fact, everybody suggesting that they are going to be sucked down in a common catastrophe. When it is suggested that it will be all right when the Ottawa Agreements come to fruition, that next July an arrangement will be made for the appointment of lots of committees and boards by which the farmer will be able to recover the actual cost of fattening a pig, it is really but a cold sort of comfort to carry to my friends when I see them again.
I have been a loyal supporter of the Government ever since they came into office, but there are two loyalties, and of the two I think I have a stronger loyalty to my constituents. I do not want to use threats but one's loyalty will wear very thin if I have to go back, and Christmas comes, and nothing whatever is done to help the agricultural industry at once. I implore the Government to use the tremendous power and authority which was given them at the last election. I do not think that they have realised that they were given complete carte blanche to do anything they liked. They have not proceeded as though they realised this. I do not think, either, that they realise what a tremendous strain it is on the loyalty of Conservative Members sitting behind them when they feel that this great opportunity is not being used and the cause of these unfortunate men
is not receiving the immediate attention which it undoubtedly demands.

Mr. TURTON: It is a very significant fact that the second day of this Debate on unemployment should be devoted to agriculture. I think Members of all parties have voiced the belief that in agriculture there is latent a cure for the unemployment situation. I make one exception to that, because it has been noteworthy throughout the Debate that not one Member has spoken from among the dissentient Liberals, who are between the devil and the deep blue sea, the devil of the Opposition and the deep blue sea of the Government. The problem that we are facing is that we are coming to the thirteenth winter of unemployment, with the unemployed numbering over 2,800,000, and while some of that unemployment is due to the whirlpool of economic world depression, part of it is a constant factor that we have had for 13 years in this country. It is that constant factor that some of us who are younger and young enough to have lived most of our active lives in all those 13 years, believe can be cured by some tackling of this agricultural problem.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) talked grandly of land settlement schemes. He told us that in Germany there were four times the number of smallholdings that we have in this country. But Germany for the last few years has adopted a most active agricultural policy, has subsidised those on the land, and has done everything to help the farmer. In the last four years in this country, I regret to say, the same policy has not been adopted. The backbone of the agricultural industry in this country is the livestock-producing section of it. No section of English agriculture is today suffering as much as the livestock-producing section. Every day I get letters from my constituents complaining about the situation. Let me quote a few sentences from a letter that I received on Saturday night:
In my own case I farm 186 acres of my own land, and employ a man with seven children and his two elder sons. I have borrowed every penny I can from the bank and on my other property and shall have to give up altogether if no help is forthcoming. I have had to sell my lambs for about nothing. Potatoes are about unsaleable. This farm is light land and will go
back to wilderness in less than a year. My man and his family will be thrown on the rates unless some help is immediately forthcoming. I have a number of accounts outstanding and owe my interest on mortgages on this farm and other properties.
That is the immediate problem. That letter is representative of the case of thousands of farmers in this country. Unless my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture can to-night put forward a policy that is immediate, a policy that is bold and constructive, these farmers, and these labourers who are dependent on the farmers, will go down this winter and their land will go derelict. What is the Government policy that has been announced so far? It is a sound long-term policy. But it is no good talking in terms of long-term policies in moments of crisis. When they devised that policy the Government were in the stable even-time of last summer. Since then prices have become catastrophic. Prime quality fat beasts are selling in Yorkshire for 30s. a live cwt.; lambs are going for less than 5s. each; small pigs for 2s. apiece. That is the problem. Stock is being given away because there is no stability or security in agriculture.
9.0 p.m.
The Government must tackle this meat-producing problem immediately. We have to bridge the gap between 35s. and 50s. for beef. When I look at the Ottawa Agreements and see all the involved mathematical tables, I am very chary to believe that quantitative regulation can bridge the gap between 35s. and 50s. I am convinced that the only way of curing the meat problem to-day is by putting a duty, and a sound duty, on meat. I believe that the problem could be tackled by a sliding scale duty which varied; as the wholesale price became higher the duty would become less. That duty at the present time would have to be a duty of between 3d. and 4d. per pound. I believe there are Members of the House who are frightened of a duty. They dare not speak of it, although they want to help agriculture. It is up to those Members of the House to produce an alternative method that will cure this problem. It may be done by quantitative regulation, but it will not be done in the next year if the imports of beef and mutton are kept at the high figures of 6¼ million cwts. of beef, and 6¾ million cwts. Of
mutton and lamb. We can grow and we must grow a considerably larger proportion of that at home.
The quantitative regulation under the Government's plan does not operate until January. I notice in to-day's "Times" that one of the Australians who was at the Ottawa Conference states that at Ottawa the Australian and New Zealand representatives made the strongest representations to the British delegates to restrict foreign shipments from the beginning of October. That is the first time I have heard that such representations were made by Australia and New Zealand. If it was possible for those restrictions to begin in October, it is now clearly possible for them to begin in December. I hope that when the Minister of Agriculture winds up this Debate he will deal with that question, and that if he is not willing to take the lead by imposing a duty I hope he will increase the quantitative regulations as they are laid down in the Ottawa Agreements.
When agriculture is stabilised, then I believe we must be ready to go into the large problem of land settlement and I venture to make one suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman with regard to that question. Last week the Reorganisation Commission dealing with pigs and pig products issued their report and in that report will be found a suggestion that, in order to maintain the contract supply, the marketing board which it is proposed to set up, should keep a pool from which they would be able to draw in case through disease or other accident, feeders fall short in their contracts. I think that such a pool is necessary to the working of the scheme and I suggest that it should be drawn from pigs under contract on pig holdings set up for unemployed men. I believe there are great possibilities in that direction for the unemployed. A large number of unemployed men have had agricultural experience in the past and those unemployed men could more quickly turn to pig keeping than to any other branch of agriculture. If the Minister adopts the report of the Commission I hope he will see that pig holdings are established for unemployed men throughout the country. That would be a favourable opportunity for sties to be put up under a scheme by which the Government would pay for a sty on the consideration that
the unemployed man was given a year's grace in regard to rent from the landlord or the county authority.
I believe that something can be devised in the nature of land settlement schemes but I am sure that nothing can come out of them until the agricultural industry has, first, been made a working proposition—which it is not to-day. We have been, the present Prime Minister of France has observed, witnessing the death agonies of England because she deliberately sacrificed her agriculture to her trade. That is what a foreign observer thinks of our problem. I believe that it is the task of this National Government to rectify the errors of the past and do someting for those rural communities which are now in peril of bankruptcy and' destitution. I ask the Government to recollect that for the agricultural labourer there is nothing between employment and destitution. He has no half-way house—no unemployment benefit—and if a man is turned out of employment, as many men will be, unless something is immediately done, no inquiry is made into his savings because he has not any. There is nothing for him between getting the 31s. 6d. which he receives in my area, and getting outdoor relief or going into an institution. The National Government has done a great deal for the nation. It has restored our credit but it has yet to restore our agriculture. I appeal to the Minister not to be frightened by the bogey which may be raised before him by some of his late colleagues and not to be chary of a meat duty, but to go out boldly and restore our industry, and thus bring happiness and contentment to the rural community throughout England.

Captain HEILGERS: The case of agriculture has been subject in the past to considerable exaggeration and therefore I would put before the House the plain tale of my own farm. In the course of the last year, ended Michaelmas, 1932, I took £2 for every £3 which I took in the previous year. On the other side of the balance sheet my expenditure was 98 per cent. of what it had been in 1931. The receipts have been falling steadily but the expenditure has been fairly constant since 1926 at about the same figure. We cannot increase our receipts. We are told that we might do so by better marketing and by co-operation but, after all, in this world slump Denmark is no
better than we are, in spite of her marketing system. As farmers, we have to turn to the expenditure side of our account and we find that 36 per cent. to 45 per cent. of our expenditure is involved in the cost of labour. It is all right if the farmer has capital, as I have, but in the case of a farmer whose capital is rapidly being depleted, and who is being pressed by the banks, there is only one way in which to economise successfully and that will mean, I am afraid, in East Anglia that many thousands of men will be turned off as soon as the sugar beet lifting and wheat seeding operations are complete.
What can be done in this world of surplus to remedy this situation and prevent such unemployment? First, there are the questions which have been urged on the consideration of the Government—the question of credits and the question of restricting meat imports. I would say that there has been considerable exaggeration in regard to this matter. Some hon. Members probably spoke quite truthfully the other day in saying that in certain places lambs were being sold for Is. 6d. I think a fair story would be what happened in my own case this year. In 1931 I sold lambs for 48s. 6d. and this year I sold the same quality of lambs at 24s. 3d., or exactly half. I would urge that in East Anglia our need for the increase of livestock production is just as great as it is in the West. My farm has 750 acres arable out of 1,050 and my production on the livestock side is 66 per cent. The wheat quota has made a considerable difference in East Anglia, in regard to the need for producing meat. You cannot grow wheat without meat. If you do not put back into the land the goodness which you take out of it when you grow wheat, your land will become worse and worse. I have no time to labour the question of credits or of the restriction of meat imports, but I hope the Government will seriously consider that we are desperately in need of some help at the present time.
The only remark I would make about credits is that if the help is given, as it was given in 1928, and if the fact that the credit has been given to the farmer is made known by the charge being registered at the Land Registry, then that credit is worse than useless because the farmer's other creditors all descend upon
him like a pack of ravening wolves. If we have credits and restriction of meat imports, that help in the present situation must be to a certain extent, in the nature of a lifebuoy thrown to a drowning man. But if we want to restore the drowning man we shall have to nurse him after he has been rescued. I suggest that the Government should first give a pledge to implement the masterly report of the bacon industry Commission and, secondly, that they ought to indicate their willingness to implement the report of the milk Reorganisation Commission or if that is not found to be satisfactory give a pledge that they really mean to stabilise the wholesale price of milk on an economic basis. At the present moment it is nothing less than a scandal. I believe I am correct in saying that the retailers are now getting just as much in profit as the farmers get paid for the whole of their production.
There is another question to which I should like to draw attention, and that is the question of barley. It seems to me that we might deal with the barley question by the staining of barley with an indelible stain, both malting and seeding barley, at the ports. You can get from our chemical industry the necessary stain. It has been done successfully in America with clover seed, and I would suggest that if only the Government are willing to stain the barley, they should thereafter call a conference with brewers and maltsters and definitely get them to agree to use a fixed percentage of English barley in English beer. Again, I would urge that there should be some method taken to extend our production of eggs and poultry. We can produce them entirely in this country, and I think we should do very well if the Government would only consider giving us a quota for eggs and poultry.
Lastly, I want to draw the Government's attention to the question whether something could not be done to reorganise the sale of vegetables? There is nothing in which the middleman plays so large a part as in the marketing of market garden produce. Very often a producer sends vegetables to London, and they change hands four or five times in Covent Garden market. The result is that our vegetables are dearer when they get into the shops than the foreign vegetables. The canning industry has
been set up, and the canning factories have been extremely successful. They buy their goods direct from the farmer, with no middleman, and they are able to put them on the market at prices which compete with the whole world. My time is up, and I would only say to the Government, in conclusion, that our need is grave. I beg them to act, and to act quickly, before it is too late, and to act with the conviction that a prosperous agriculture means a prosperous Britain.

Sir F. ACLAND: I have to choose the rather difficult course between trying to speak about agriculture and trying to speak about unemployment. As I find it would take me at least an hour and a-half to say what I have to say about agriculture, and as I have only 25 minutes, I shall speak about unemployment; and, after all, that is the subject which we were supposed to be considering during these two days and a-half. Having been out of the House for some time, and having had the privilege of doing a certain amount of work among the unemployed during a considerable part of it, I have naturally had opportunities of thinking about this terrible and difficult question of unemployment which did not come the way of other hon. Members. Whether the conclusions to which I have come are right or not, the House will judge, but to me at any rate this Debate seems to be about the most serious and critical that I have listened to since the 3rd August, 1914.
This Government is the only one which is possible for some time. Any present alternative, I suppose, would be worse, and it has before it in the international field negotiations and settlements of the most intense difficulty, upon whose success or failure not only the final fate of the unemployed in this country, but the future history of the world will depend. Wherever you look—at disarmament, Manchuria, the all-round lowering of tariff barriers, the revision of the Treaty of Versailles, international debts, the regulation of currency, credit, and banking—there never has been a more difficult set of inter-related problems; and, speaking for myself, the more I get to know about any one of them, the more difficult they seem to be. One thing seems to me certain: they cannot be settled in one year or even in two years. But things cannot go on as they
are, and they will not get substantially better until those questions are really settled.
It is absurd to believe that because perhaps our unemployment figures are getting a little better now, all is going to be well. All is not well. There are 30,000,000 unemployed persons in the civilised countries of the world, and that is the equivalent of an army on the march, in fours, without any break, stretching from here to Australia. That is not a state of stable equilibrium, and it cannot last. If anyone looks in his paper almost any morning, he will see that in one country or another things are on the move, and they are on the move in the wrong direction instead of in the right one. If our Government are to have a reasonable chance of steering this country and the world through, the great problems I have mentioned will surely need their concentrated attention for some years yet in a quiet atmosphere, but unless the Government have, here at home, the greatest possible amount of good will, they risk failure with these things, and it seems to me that success for these big international efforts will become impossible if our home affairs harden out into a struggle of opposing forces, a struggle between people who use force to attain their ends and people who use force on the other side to prevent those ends being attained. We might very easily get in this country a war atmosphere, and, as we all know, a war atmosphere is fatal for the things that all of us really care about. It is my knowledge of the unemployment question that makes me afraid of that war atmosphere, and I am—I say it definitely and seriously—afraid now for our country as I have never been before.
I had perhaps better say how it is that I have come to feel about this matter so strongly. Nearly 30 years ago I began, in the old days of the Agricultural Organisation Society, to try to help farmers, smallholders, and allotment holders to organise, and that work, a parallel here to what the late Sir Horace Plunkett was doing in Ireland so much more successfully, stopped after the War, so far as the larger cultivators were concerned. We carried it on for the allotment men, and that society united, three years ago, with another society looking after allotments; and since then the united allot-
ment holders of this country have been kind enough to carry me on—I happened to be chairman of one of the bodies—as president of the united organisation. As such, I have had a great deal to do with the scheme, with which the Society of Friends is so very honourably identified, to help the unemployed and the underemployed to obtain supplies for effective allotment cultivation. That, of course, has taken me pretty regularly into the districts of worst unemployment, to smooth over difficulties or to encourage the less hardy people, and it has kept me in touch week by week with those in the districts who are doing the real work.
My experience has been that the nature of the work to be done in all the districts of long-continued unemployment has entirely changed in the last year or two. Three or four years ago, when we started on it, it went easily. One had a notice put up in the Employment Exchange, explaining what could be done and inviting applications for allotments, and the applications came in; and if the local authority could be induced to provide suitable land, the scheme worked easily and well. But now, over and over again, although we may get land provided free of rent for the first year or two, and put up notices, advertise for applications in the Press and have meetings of the unemployed, and although the officials of the Exchanges, who are the men's best friends, do all they can, next to nothing happens. It is not because the men do not like allotment work or do not take to it when they get the chance. It saves them, as it always has, body, soul and spirit when they get on to it, and they revel in it. The difference is that in the last year or two, and particularly during the last few months, we have been getting evidence, such as there has never been before, that the men in these districts are rotting and have rotted body, soul and spirit for want of something to do.
This is the primary problem to which the Government should attend. That is the outstanding new fact. I do not think the Government realise it, and I would like to put before them a few phrases, first of all from a singularly well-informed and clear-sighted article published by the "Times" a fortnight ago, comparing what was being done here and
in Germany to deal with the problem. The writer of the article speaks, quite rightly, of that lethargy and demoralisation which follow compulsory idleness, and adds that we here have not yet realised the size and urgency of the problem. Summing up with a description of what is being done in Germany, he says:
The outstanding and decisive fact is that it is generally recognised in Germany, but not here, that an unemployed man needs something to do to keep his soul alive.
I will quote a sentence from the report on last season's work on an allotment scheme, in one of the South Wales mining areas made by one of our organisers, a retired naval officer, a class not overmuch given to sentiment. He says:
Unemployed men—poor fellows—are mostly two-thirds dead and the other third pretty cold. When I say this I am intensely serious. Wretchedness, suffering and long-deferred hope destroys these men's confidence in themselves and leads them to mistrust everybody and every thing. We must begin much earlier another year, for it needs much time to resurrect these poor men and to vitalise them into action. They must be inspired and encouraged by personal contact continuously. They must never be let drift.
That man knew what he was saying. He had seen drifting logs in his time, a prey to every current and with no power or motion and liable to be pushed about by every wind and wave. That is the danger. The men are lethargic and almost dead, but still they are alive enough to be pushed about by every evil wind and wave. And that is what I fear if the Government will not take this matter more seriously than they have shown any signs of doing in this Debate hitherto. I admire the amazing patience and fortitude of these men more than I can say, but if men finally lose all hope of employing or occupying themselves in reasonable and legal ways, they may quite easily be led into kinds of occupations of a very different sort. In some districts up and down the country they are being led in that way, but to their everlasting credit be it said they are, in the mass, not answering to that lead yet; but if this Debate gives them no hope and things go on drifting, I do not like the prospect. I think the House will believe me and others who have been really in close touch with this question in the last few months, that it would re-
quire very little to produce a state of violent disturbance not only in our great centres of population but in many of our country villages.
9.30 p.m.
It seems to me that the first duty of the Government is to see that these men, who have been out of work for year after year, must no longer be allowed to drift as they have hitherto. The experience that we have had in this allotment work leads up to this. The unemployment problem is not in the least a problem of arithmetic. It does not get just a little worse when the numbers go up and just a little better when the numbers go down. It gets worse, and very much worse every month that a large number of men are left wholly without anything. It is not merely a problem of money. Of course, it is right to smooth off the hard edges of the Unemployment Act and the Poor Law and get more humanity and uniformity into the system, and I am glad the Government are going to do that in the next few days; but if I were unemployed I know I should be here demonstrating, if I still had strength to walk, and if my money was doubled I should still be here to demonstrate. But if I had something to do I should not be content—of course I never am—but I should put up with things on the money which most of the men are now receiving. The problem is not one of arithmetic or money, but one of occupation and employment.
May I give the House one instance of the difference this sort of allotment work makes in Sheffield where I was some months ago? We had 29 men who were put on allotments and who were receiving either treatment in clinics or waiting to go into a sanatorium for tuberculosis. After one season's allotment work, 23 of these 29 men were discharged absolutely cured, and had no need of any more treatment. Let hon. Members think what they have saved. An allotment for an unemployed man costs the State 3s. a year, and if the local authority provides it rent free it costs a maximum of 10s. a year. Institutional treatment for tuberculosis may cost the country £2 a week or more. It needs an occupation of some kind to get a man fit, and is not that first the better alternative? The superintendent of one of the biggest institutions for
mental treatment told me the other day that about four out of every five of the men who now come under his care come simply because of the effect of long continued worry, and he said if he had had a chance of prescribing allotments for these men a few months before they came, he would not see one in 10 of them coming into the institution.
I must tell the House one story about a place at which we set men to work. It was a rubbish tip in a north of England town, and very bad land, but the unemployed had tackled it and one plot in particular was pointed out as particularly good. A deputation of the town council came round to inspect it, and one dear old boy held up his hands and said, when he saw this beautiful improvement, "May the Lord be praised for all his abundant mercies!" The unemployed man said, "Yes, but you should have seen it two months ago when the Lord had it all to himself." I can hardly say I and those who have had a hand in that work felt amply rewarded for anything we might have done when we felt we had restored to that man not only energy and vitality but his sense of humour. The House will see that I have told that story only to illustrate the vital importance of giving men something to do. There are plenty of things which can be done besides that, and I think the Government could, should, and must, help to get them done. I am quite certain of one thing, that when they try they will find things much easier than they thought, because they will have so many helpers.
Years ago in our allotment schemes we tried through the proper channels to get the co-operation of various organised bodies like the Co-operators, the trade unions, the Christian Churches and the Notary Movement. Everybody helped but only a little, except the Christian Churches which at that time did absolutely nothing. But now things have improved quite a lot, and people are coming forward in all sorts of places to help to get a little interest, human companionship and occupation into those men's lives. The different churches have got down to it not very systematically but in many cases effectively. I should like to mention the Dean of Manchester, who went from South Wales, where he had seen the effect of allotments, and found
that very little was being done in Lancashire, where he is really trying to get the clergy to help the good work along.
Surely if the parable about going into the highways and hedges has any meaning at all, it points to the sort of work which they are doing to give occupation for these unemployed men as being at the very centre of their religious duty. How can the State help? They can help rather by being guide and friend than by being financier; if they help with money, it can only be on the basis of grants-in-aid of voluntary effort, as in the case of our allotment work. A little money will go a long way. The State should simply use a little imagination and realise the importance of this work, and encourage well-thought-out experiments and broadcast the result of successful effort. They should lend buildings and land that they are making little use of. They should once more and at once use the power they took in the War to get land and buildings at short notice and fix the compensation afterwards. We have the men at our disposal who became experts in taking land and assessing compensation, and if the Government adopted this suggestion this week—in December it will be too late—we could settle 300,000 unemployed men on new allotments during the next cultivating season. That is a thing I want the Government to do, because it is practical and will come to something.
It is not enough simply for the Government to do something. I want to say a word to hon. Members opposite. A writer in the "Times," who was commenting on the difference between Germany and this country, said truly, with regard to the better position in Germany, that neither the State nor the trade unions offered such opposition as existed here to an unemployed man doing odd jobs. One of the schemes which they find most fertile and helpful in Germany is to put a large number of voluntary workers in jobs. These workers get 8s. a week, three meals a day and a pair of boots, and they work at things like land drainage, snaking playing fields, and building youth hostels. As long as there is no element of private profit in the work, and as long as it is in the interest of the community and work of the sort that would not otherwise be done in times like these, the trade unions do not object. If the
Government will show practical good will, will not the trade unions do the same? I for one—the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) is another—have always thought it a pity that if a smallholder nails six pieces of wood together and makes a door and gives it a coat of paint, he is supposed to be doing two other men out of a job. He is not really, and that sort of thing might surely be relaxed just now. Surely the trade unions are strong enough to relax their regulations now so that these men may get occupations, and tighten up afterwards when the emergency is a little easier, if they need to do so.
I had hoped to talk on the subject of smallholdings and rural housing, but I have only time for one of these subjects. Do not the Government realise how much the present cheapness of money ought to help them to get local authorities once more to work on things like smallholdings and housing? Is it impossible that the Government should consolidate and convert a large block of local authorities' loans which have been raised at high rates of interest? I believe that they could easily save local authorities from £6,000,000 to £9,000,000 a year in interest, and it would be perfectly reasonable to apply to local authorities the condition that if they saved that interest, the money so saved should be spent on productive work or else it would go into the national Exchequer as a relief. Low rates of interest would also allow the Government subsidies for housing and things of that kind to be very much reduced, and yet things could get done. It is inevitable that the Treasury—I have been there, and I know—should be rather too apt to keep low interest rates as a private reserve of their own, but now that their big conversion has been done, it seems to me that these low interest rates ought to be used to facilitate and to fertilise productive work all over the country.
It would take me too long to explain why I do not think that we can just now multiply at any rapid rate the ordinary sealed pattern smallholding where a man works as an isolated individual and you have to erect him a new house, buildings, and so on. In ordinary times, that meant a dead loss of from £400 to £500 per holding. It would be less now. I do not think that that is the most profitable
way to take action. We ought to get back to something like the normal pre-War 30,000 acres a year, or something of that kind, instead of the wretched 4,000 acres a year which we have been having lately. The truest thing that has ever been said about British agriculture was said by Sir Thomas Middleton during the War:
Most of our farms are too small for a farmer to work with his head, and too large for him to work with his hands.
We ought in better times to have worked harder to make smallholdings larger at one end of the scale and smaller at the other. The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs was right when he said that the small man has been suffering in these times much less than the large man, and, although there is room even in these days for some of the large industrialised holdings for which legislative provision has been made, on the other hand I am sure that we could settle carefully selected men. Many of the men in the coal districts have land sense and land love, and would make good if we gave many of them a chance to work a piece of land. It would be easy to select men who would really make good and establish them in colonies working individually, but selling co-operatively. We should be astonished to find how many of them had a real love of the land if they once got that chance. A great deal can be and should be done in the country villages. There is terrible unemployment in many of them, and great distress because the agricultural worker has no unemployment benefit. We ought to go right back to the old policy of three acres and a. cow. It upset a. Government once, and I hope that the lack of it will not upset another Government now, but there are many men who, if they could get a couple of acres at the same sort of rent as the farmer pays for similar land—that is the key to the whole thing—would make good; and they ought to be allowed and encouraged to put up their own buildings. A good man can do a great deal in collecting useful building material at a low price—particularly on a dark night. There are thousands of men who would be glad of that chance. They could not live on their two acres, bat it would help out their ordinary employment, and would keep the wolf from the door when they were out of employment.
I have cut out what I intended to say about housing, but what I really come down to is this. If we do not take care, we may have in this country something like war of the very worst sort—civil war. We know how hard we work when war comes, but, knowing what a horrible thing war is, cannot we work equally hard to avert it? We talk about war to avert war. Cannot we have a peace to avert war? We all, except in Debates of this kind, devote too much time attacking one another about the past. That does no good at all. When the country is in danger, is it not better to be constructive about the future? A million men died in the War. More than that number are dying now almost as completely in those terrible industrial districts, and if we can do nothing for them it would be almost better that they should be really dead. After all, man was meant to do something with his life. If man is higher than the beasts it is as a creator in mind or body or spirit. God the Creator made man in his own image to create. If men are for a long time kept from any creative work they cease to be men, they lose their manhood. This House can give them back that manhood. Will it not do it?

Mr. ATTLEE: I am sure the whole House will agree with me in saying that the speech of the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) was extraordinarily interesting and extraordinarily timely. He brought out three points of the utmost value. First of all he brought before us a realisation sometimes forgotten in these Debates, of the plight of the individual unemployed person and his sufferings from lack of occupation. Secondly, he brought before us the urgency of the problem, and I do not think the speeches from the Government so far have sufficiently emphasised how the time is running out. Thirdly, he made very practical suggestions. This afternoon the Debate has been devoted mainly to agriculture. If I interpose between Members who have spoken on agriculture and the Minister of Agriculture it is not to pose as an agricultural expert, or to try to divert the Debate, but rather with the object of bringing the needs of agriculture into their perspective in the whole unemployed problem. I wish to support a great deal of what has been said by bon. Members who have spoken upon agriculture, and to em-
phasise the need of far more vigorous action on the part of the Government than even they have demanded. I hope the Minister of Agriculture will be able to give us something more constructive than we had from the Minister of Labour or the Prime Minister. The thing that struck me about their speeches was that both were filled with the same note of absolute hopelessness, and that is extremely dangerous when discontent is so widespread in the country as it is today. When I went home after listening to the Minister of Labour I happened to pick up Bacon's Essays, and was reading his essay upon discontent and the remedies. He said that the first remedy was to remove the material cause, and went on:
It is a certain sign of an honest Government and proceeding when it can hold men's hearts by hopes even when it cannot by satisfaction.
In the two speeches we have heard from the Treasury Bench we have been offered no satisfaction and offered no hope. I do not think the Government yet realise the very serious condition of the country. I know that in this Debate I must not talk about ultimate solutions, we have to deal with practical proposals, but while I find it quite easy to avoid the political interplay of party and party I find it difficult not to say something on the broad economics of the question. I would like to ask, first, whether the Government have a definite economic policy and plan. In my view they are trying to combine inconsistencies, trying to combine the economics of Manchester and of Birmingham. On the Manchester side they run a cheeseparing economy, and on the Birmingham side they go in for tariffs. Without saying whether I think the Birmingham policy is right or wrong, I am going to suggest that the Government ought to have a definite policy and to follow it up to its logical conclusion.
If the Government are following the Ottawa idea of Imperial economic unity the only possible corollary to that is a widely-diffused purchasing power in this country, if we are not to deceive the Dominions, because what do the Dominions send us? For the most part they send us mass products for mass consumption by the ordinary rank and file of the people; they do not, in the
main, send us special luxuries. Therefore, unless we have a widely-distributed purchasing power in the country the Agreements with Ottawa will not be of such great value to the Dominions, because an effective market will be lacking. If the Government are following the policy of economic nationalism, the corollary is an intense development of our home resources. I wish to know whether the Government are really following that policy, because I do not find a real definite plan. Like the hon. and gallant Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Macmillan) I want to see a definite plan. I daresay we should disagree on the plan, but it has been said of war, and it holds good of peace, that any plan is better than no plan.
It is all the more pressing because we understand that the great fear of this Government is an unfavourable balance of trade. In the latter part of last year and the early part of this we passed any number of Measures designed to check imports on the ground that we were afraid of an unfavourable balance of trade. That calls for the development of our home resources, and I do not see that being done at present. To set up tariffs without undertaking the necessary plans for home development is a fallacy. It seems to me that the Government have there departed from their programme, and gone back to the Manchester policy, because the originator of Ottawa was Joseph Chamberlain, and Joseph Chamberlain not only looked abroad but also looked at home. He was the man who did great municipal work in Birmingham, and it was his son who brought the Birmingham Municipal Bank into being. Therefore, to be a follower of Joseph Chamberlain it is necessary to think not only of Imperial Preference but also of the proper development of our home resources and housing and of the proper control of finance.
The agriculturists have put up a tremendously strong case for the Government implementing their policy of economic nationalism. I am not arguing to-night for or against economic nationalism, I am assuming that that is the Government's policy, but it is not enough to put on tariffs and restrictions of one kind or another, and then wait for a period of years for private enterprise to step in and make a profit, because con-
ditions are much too serious for that. It is as if during the War we had waited year after year for our munitions without creating any organisation. We did try it for a time, but very soon had to drop it, and I think conditions in the world and in this country to-day are quite as serious as they were in the years from 1914 to 1918. In the case of agriculture various demands have been made with regard to meat. There have been suggestions as to implementing the Pig Report and as to adopting the Milk Report. We have had a year of waiting, without any vigorous action on any of those aspects of agriculture, not because Measures were not on the Statute Book, or that there were not plans in the Ministry. Let me give one instance. We have been told about the very low prices of meat. There are other complaints in regard to meat. There has been an elaborate report on the subject of abattoirs. There is the possibility of setting up a movement which would make a very great difference in the amount that an agriculturist got for his beast if there were a proper abattoir system such as was recommended in that report. Why cannot that be put into force?
Then there are the questions of land drainage, the equipment of farms, fruit and canning factories. Are we to sit by and wait for all these things? Why could you not begin a big drive at the present time to see that something is done. If you wish to have an efficient agriculture in this country, why not take the measures necessary and make it efficient at once? It is common ground that agriculture has been suffering from intense depression for years, that it is starved of capital and that a great deal needs to be done in regard to buildings, drainage and so forth. Are we merely to pass Measures in regard to prices and to trust that these things will be done in the course of years when eventually some people think that there is a profit in agriculture? If the Government had a plan, they would take in hand these rural reorganisations right away. Take another question—housing. I am not going to say a great deal on that, because it has already been dealt with. Is there any reason why we should not have a rural housing scheme, as you must if you are going to put people on the land? I do not know whether the Government propose to put them into tents. One reason why people come off the land is because of the houses.
We are always brought back to the question of how the money is to be raised. I will deal with that in a moment. I want first of all to suggest what is to be done. We have been told by the Prime Minister that an oil from coal scheme is almost ready now. If that is so, are the Government prepared to go ahead with it? One of the biggest problems that every Government has had has been the problem of the colliery areas. You have got the problem of dealing with human beings in those areas, with the capital and the social capital sunk in them. If you had a practical scheme, it would be worth while going right ahead with it. There comes in again the question of the balance of trade. You have about £26,000,000 worth of oil imports every year. If you want to redress your balance of trade, are you going to wait for 10 years? Why not go ahead with a bold scheme and control the imports of oil?
One other point concerns my own constituency. We have heard a great deal about sailors. Why do we not have English sailors on English ships? We have known of the "jolly English Jack Tars" since childhood. When we come to look at them they are every colour of the rainbow. The English Jack Tar is extremely rare. Perhaps Members of the Government will tell us why. I do not see why we should not have British sailors in British ships.
10.0 p.m.
I want to see these things done at once by a vigorous Government. I am not dealing with them on the lines of party principle, or saying that I want them done in the Socialist way or in any other way, but I want them done. Take the question of derelict areas. You have that problem with you year after year. They are left. Then hon. Members wonder why men rot. They are being allowed to rot, and their condition grows steadily worse. In the time of the Labour Government surveys were, I believe, made of all those areas to see what could be done. There are hon. Members who are interested in them. Can we not get down to the question of those areas in order to see what can be done in each particular one? They are all separate problems and need to be tackled. I do not believe they are problems that can be tackled generally. They are definite problems, and each needs application on the spot to see whether people.
who live in those areas ought to live there any longer. If the areas can be reconditioned, let them be so, but do not let them go on as they are.
I was disturbed by part of the Prime Minister's speech, because it seemed to me that he got his economics extremely mixed. He said that in all these matters you must cut your coat according to your cloth, and it seemed that he believed that the quantity of cloth that we had was something fixed. There is the country itself, which is the land, its products and all its equipment, and there are the people of this country, and the question of how much we are going to produce is largely a question of organisation. If my cloth is only so many yards long, then the cloth is short because of the 3,000,000 who are producing no cloth at all. If those people were producing, I should have more cloth for my coat. The Prime Minister seemed to be under some obsession about that.
The question is raised as to where the money is to come from. I wonder whether anybody seriously contends that capital is not available for home development. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) said that he would support willingly the raising of a large loan to exploit the Dominions; why not raise a large loan to exploit this country? Is it really true that money is not available, because, if so, that is a very serious position. It means that this country is defenceless. Are we going to be told that we should not get the money? When we are told that we cannot get money for the development of this country, let us remember that that is exactly what the bankers said in the Great War. I understand that, after a few weeks, they came to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and said: "You cannot go on with the War, because there is no more money." He said: "Get on with the War," and we got on with it. As a matter of fact, we financed the War out of the resources of the people of this country. It is true that we borrowed £1,000,000,000, but we lent £2,000,000,000. I have no doubt that we got rid of a certain amount of foreign securities, but not to that extent; we financed the War out of our own resources. Now it is said that we cannot finance the peace. The Minister of Labour said, "You are spending
£120,000,000 a year on the cost of unemployment relief." It sounds a very big sum, but it would not have run the War for three weeks. Let us compare the condition of these 3,000,000 people who are suffering in this industrial struggle with that of 3,000,000 men put into the field in the War. Those 3,000,000 men had great sufferings, and they were in a futile occupation. On the other hand, the present 3,000,000 are in a futile disoccupation. We fed and clothed 3,000,000 fighting men and their families, and now it is said that we cannot feed and clothe the unemployed because there is no money.
Fourteen years ago to-day we were still in the War, and we were able to utilise the services of practically every employable person in this country. Why was that? It was because the community decided what should be produced and who should consume. I do not think we are going to get through our present difficult time unless the Government take power to control the economic life of this country. I find great difficulty, when discussing these questions, in getting people to look at the matter from the point of view of the nation. As is shown by the letters in the Press, people, in discussing economies, ring the changes or public economy and private economy, on public spending and private spending, and they generally seem to get the two mixed up together. If we look on this nation as an economic unit, the only thing that costs the nation anything, apart from using up our resources, is what we get from overseas—from outside this country. It is generally considered that it is getting almost impossible, or at any rate dangerously near it, to pay for our food and raw materials, but, if you look at the figures, you find that at the outside something like 2,500,000 of our people are engaged in work in order to pay for the food and raw materials that we get from abroad. The rest of our people are engaged in performing services and producing commodities for exchange between themselves.
Suppose that the 3,000,000 unemployed were put to work on, say, housing development, the reconditioning of agriculture, and all these various schemes which are put forward, what is it going to cost the community apart from a series of book entries between person and person in this country Already you
have to keep these people somehow, and they get so little that, apart from rent, the rest probably has to go largely in commodities from overseas, because they are spending merely on food. The actual cost would be anything additional that they get for working for wages which is expended on commodities from overseas, that is to say, food or raw materials or things made from those raw materials. That is what we should have to pay for. Can anyone say that, with 2,500,000 people managing to pay for all our food and raw material every year, we cannot do that? I know that there is a certain amount paid as tribute in the form of interest, but it is possible, taking the nation as an economic unit, for us to buy with our products and services the food and raw materials that we require. I suggest that we are really going in for the very worst form of parsimony in keeping our people idle. I cannot add anything to what has been said so eloquently by the right hon. Member for North Cornwall as to the loss in human fitness and human values in this country, but, when people talk about the enormous cost of putting the unemployed to work, they never seem to set on the other side the value of the products of the work of the unemployed.
I noticed that the Minister of Labour drew a curious distinction. He talked about expenditure on public works, houses, roads, and so on, and contrasted that with work done, as he said, in the ordinary way of business. That seems to me to be a very curious outlook, because it seems to suggest that the provision of houses for the people and the provision of roads and so on is not part of the ordinary business of society. On the other hand, he took considerable comfort from the fact that there was an encouraging demand for motor cars and aeroplanes. If, however, you had a friend who told you he had just bought a nice new aeroplane and a couple of motor cars, and you went to his house and found the drive neglected, the house falling down, and the children starving, you would not think it was economy; but the right hon. Gentleman seems to assume that expenditure by the nation on such things as houses, roads, and even recreation grounds and so on, is somehow worse and less economic than expenditure by private persons.
If this is a National Government, it should take a national outlook on these matters. I know that it will not take a Socialist outlook, but it ought at least to be consistent in its national outlook. Let it determine that it is going to do all it can to develop the internal resources of this nation. If it decides that we ought to have a flourishing agriculture, let it go the whole way to getting it; do not let it play with the question. If it decides that there is a possibility of recreating our coal industry, by producing oil from coal or by whatever method it may be, let it go the whole way to getting it done.
When the Prime Minister talked of the simile of the ship in a storm, it seemed to me that there was no one at the helm, that there was no one directing the ship, that no course had been laid, that it was drifting on to the rocks. That is why we have asked that this question of unemployment should be discussed. The Prime Minister said that this is a great human problem, a great national problem, a great world problem, but I think it should be said that it is not a matter that is coming right without effort—that we are not engaged in a, kind of easy peace-time administration. We must all recognise the difficulties that any Government must have, but we ask them to show some of the vigour that they would show if a war were on. If they went into a war, and carried it on even for a year without any plan, they would very soon be beaten. I do not see that they have any clear plan now. I do not suppose that, if they had a plan, it would be one that I should like, but I would rather they had some plan than no plan. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman who is going to speak next will say that he has got a plan for agriculture, and I hope that, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer speaks, he will say that the Government have a national plan of some kind or other.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Major Elliot): On the conclusion of this Debate, none can fail to realise with what gravity and seriousness the House as a whole views this problem. It is, I think, true to say that, with certain inevitable lapses, from time to time we have all done our best to keep it on the level of a Council of State contributing what we could towards the solution of
what is, admittedly as great a crisis as has ever faced our country. I had the privilege a couple of days ago of sitting through a similar Debate in the other place, and there again the same note was struck. Not merely was this a crisis, but it was a crisis in which the country and both Houses of Parliament called out for leadership and action. They said, as has been said to-night: "Do try again. If you make mistakes, we shall forgive you. The only thing we shall not forgive you for is doing nothing." That has been more particularly emphasised in the Debate to-day with regard to the position of agriculture, and it is especially notable, when dealing with this, that Member after Member, both from town and country, has had the same tale to tell. They said the country is one. Town and country sink or swim together. It is a welcome sign of the break-up of the 50 years' frost which has hung over the land in the belief that you can get prosperity in the towns but not in the counties. It cannot be done. Now we are faced in an emergency, with short time to do it, with a reconstruction not merely of our economics, which is difficult enough, but also of our philosophy, which is much more difficult, and we have found time after time that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen were willing enough to recast their economics but always came back with a sneaking fear that it is wrong because it is contrary to what they have been taught in the lecture rooms of philosophy in the days of their youth.
The position of unemployment as a whole, of course, is one which it would be quite unfitting for me here to review. It has been reviewed by Ministers much my senior and will be reviewed by them in the course of this Debate. Agriculture itself is a great employing industry. The Census of Production shows that agriculture, with 1,280,000 engaged in it, is the third largest industry in the country. It is surpassed only by the iron and steel, the shipbuilding, and the engineering trades all taken together and by the Mines and Quarries Group. Those industries are not really so homogeneous, for the industry of agriculture is interwoven through and through. Each part of it must be successful if any part of it is to be successful, and it is not possible to have one area go out of production, as it is possible for one coalfield to go out
of production, and still leave a prosperous industry being conducted in other areas. In the value of its output, agriculture has only been exceeded by the whole textile group, by the engineering group, and by the mines and quarries group. The imports of food and drink amounted to nearly half our total imports.
A falling off in agriculture means, of course, a falling off of employment itself. It means the flooding of people from the countryside into the city, because agriculture has not that localising effect of unemployment insurance which causes a man who is unemployed in some small mining village to remain in that mining village. If unemployment occurs on a large scale in the countryside, the unemployed agriculturists will inevitably begin to drift into the big county towns and produce quite a novel type of unemployment, that is to say, unemployment with which America is unfortunately more familiar, a drifting unemployment where people who have no homes and very little chance of relief find themselves moving into the big towns in the belief that the streets of the nearest big town are paved with gold.
The guiding principle which this House has seen in the last few years, and particularly in the last 12 months, is that agriculture itself is a great employing industry and that without a prosperous agriculture you cannot have prosperous towns. But there is something more that is coming into the perception of the House and the country with every week that passes. It is the fear that something is happening to break the spring of this nation and that, if you lose agriculture, you not only lose an industry; you lose your life. If a nation loses the art of producing food from its soil, it is not as if it loses some kind of skill or other; it is as though a roan loses the power to breathe. When a man loses the power to breathe he dies, and when a nation loses the power to till the soil it dies also.
That brings us to the next resolution of the nation which is that it is determined that agriculture should be preserved. It may be economic or it may be uneconomic, but this nation has taken fiscal measures, measures of one kind or another, which a few years ago would have caused well-nigh a revolution to put
through. I still remember the day when the President of the Board of Trade came down to the House and announced, with the full concurrence of the right hon. Gentleman who subsequently agreed to differ on what might seem less important matters, that he had the sanction of the Cabinet as a whole to impose duties running up to 100 per cent. on certain agricultural products. I remember well the outcry and hysteria of the "Manchester Guardian," which said that a fundamental divide had been crossed and that from this time onwards all paths would lead down that way. Indeed, they had come to a parting of the ways. It might seem a small thing, but it was really a great thing. It was a duty which was imposed on foodstuffs, or whatever you called it, luxury products or anything else. We had crossed the great divide, and now on for years to come, the path of the nation would lie along that line and not upon the line upon which it had previously been going. I think that that is so.
I am sure that it is the instinctive fear of the nation that something which it did not like to contemplate was on the horizon, the fear which we had seen become more acute in the last few weeks, the fear of the ungarnered harvest, that the time might come when it would not pay to gather the fruits of the soil in this country because for some obscure economic reason it was cheaper to bring them overseas in ships. The nation said, without any discussion at all, when that day comes, important as are our trade and shipping interests, when it no longer pays to garner the harvest in England because it is cheaper to bring them in from abroad—that is the day on which the collapse of our economic fabric will be forecast. If it does mean the sacrifice of the things of which we have been proud, such as our foreign trade and great shipping interests; if it comes to the day that we cannot keep people on the land in the countryside, we will sacrifice anything sooner than have that.
It was a very grave decision which the nation took. It is in pursuance of that decision that we find ourselves debating here to-day. We are debating at the moment the question of putting more people on the land, of securing more production from the land, of enlarging and expanding agriculture, the whole
stock and crop, in our country of Great Britain. That is not the problem with which I am faced. That is not the question with which I have been grappling ever since I came to the Ministry. It is how to hold what we have got. How to keep the people on the land. How to secure a market for the products we have already secured. When we stabilise all those things, then will be the time to discuss how and where we shall expand and what production we can call upon the fields and the flocks of England to give us. I am sure that, though it is difficult in these days of modern science to set any limits to those powers of production, the difficulty will not come from the powers of production in this country. It will come from the difficulty of the powers of absorption of this market. How much can we afford to produce in this country and to consume? How much can our markets hold? Because all our friends who have spoken from the true Opposition side—the Free Trade Opposition side—have insisted at the same time on a great development of our export trade and a great increase of our production from the land.
But these are not two things that can be pursued independently of one another. What is the problem with which I am faced in dealing with this question? Take one example, an extension of the production of bacon. How easy to bring about the position which hon. and right hon. Members have pressed upon me from all quarters of the House—to cut down food imports and to produce more at home. I can extend bacon production at home at once, but I find myself at once—I see a smile coming over the face of the ex-Minister for Mines, who knows the problem with which one is faced—confronted with the question of less bacon from Denmark and less coal orders from Scandinavia. That is a matter which the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister for Mines and the President of the Board of Trade have to review.
The difficulties with which we shall find ourselves faced are not the difficulties of increased production from the soil of this country. The first thing that we have to do is to get a market for what we are now growing, and if we can get that and secure a remunerative price there will be no difficulty in getting people upon the land. People will flock to the land. There will be no difficulty
in getting capital into the agricultural industry. Capital will flow into it. Only two or three nights ago I had the honour of being the guest of the Lea Valley Growers Association. Not many people have heard of the Lea Valley growers. But the Lea Valley growers represent one of the great glasshouse industries of this country. Although they work in a small area and cover a restricted field, that area produces a value of products equal to one half of the whole wheat crop of Great Britain. They are working under a tariff, a high tariff, what we would have called before the War a mountainous tariff. They are prosperous this year, where last year they were in debt. This year they are putting on labour, where last year they were casting it off. This year they are engaging in new capital work and expenditure which before they were totally unable even to contemplate.
There is cheap money and cheap land to-day, but unless you can also add remunerative prices for the product all these things will be of no avail. The problem of agriculture is the problem of prices, and on prices we must concentrate. How are we to deal with our problem? The Government after coming into office made a statement of policy which is being step by step implemented, and implemented as part of a progressive policy. In November, 1931, the Government announced first their wheat policy and, secondly, their intention to help the horticultural and market gardening industry of this country by means of tariffs Both those promises were immediately implemented. On the 11th February the Government made a full statement of policy, which included the wheat quota, the inclusion of Agriculture in the Import Duties Bill, an inquiry into malting barley, the continuation of duties on horticultural products, the Milk Commission, a quantitative regulation of bacon imports and the Reorganisation Commission on potatoes, if so desired by the growers. Step by step that policy has been implemented.
10.30 p.m.
On the great fundamental question of meat and livestock it was announced, and repeatedly announced by the Ministry that that could not be tackled until after it had been reviewed by the Empire as a whole at the Ottawa Conference. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer as far back as 23rd February, in the Debate on the Import Duties Bill stated that regulations for meat would not be ruled out, and the Imperial position which has been regulated certainly leaves it within the power of this country, of the executive of this country, to take further steps. There has been no limitation of the sovereign power of Parliament and the executive in that respect, and I am sure that the steps which I am about to announce will bring the greatest consolation to some hon. Members.
What is the present agricultural position? It seems to me that it is dominated by the livestock position. We have heard with great pleasure and delight the speech of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). He spoke of the necessity for a greater increase in smallholdings. Yes, but I was a little sorry that he did not review the position of his own country, Wales. What is the position there, a sheep-rearing country, a stock-rearing country? The county of Carnarvon does many great things, so does Anglesey and Pembrokeshire, they are all notable and famous places. In Anglesey there are 158,000 sheep, in Pembrokeshire 166,000 sheep, and in Carnarvonshire 315,000 sheep. [Interruption.] Good breeding ewes were selling at 10s. and 12s. 6d. this year as compared with 16s. and 22s. last year. Store lambs from the hills sold this year from 3s. 6d. to 10s. as against 8s. and 15s. a year ago. How can we go to the men on the Welsh hills with a policy of smallholdings unless we can secure to them some reasonable remuneration for these ancient industries which they have carried on for so long.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It is due to competition from the Dominions.

Major ELLIOT: Competition from the Dominions is no doubt a serious thing—

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It is due entirely to Dominion competition.

Major ELLIOT: The right hon. Gentleman should devote some of the attention which he has given to smallholdings to the hills of Wales. The people there will tell him that if you can buy good beef and good bacon at the low prices at which you can get them to-day they in-
evitably reduce the prices of hill lambs. The competition of beef and bacon has as much to do with the fall in general meat prices as any other single factor. It is not possible to separate them. Let the right hon. Gentleman ask any housewife whether if she sees good "stewing steak cheap to-day" or "bacon cheaper to-day" she finds the same necessity for buying a quarter of lamb. Let him ask the ordinary housewife, or the lady Members of this House, whether it is not the case that the prudent housewife will scan the prices and if she sees that the prices of beef or bacon are cheap it inevitably reacts on the price of other meat. The price of livestock is pre-eminently the price of British agriculture to-day. The problem of agriculture is the problem of prices, and the problem of prices is the problem of supplies. And this overwhelming drop in prices is constantly reacting upon the livestock industry and seriously affects the question of employment on the land. The prices of livestock have fallen because the market for fat stock is so saturated and glutted with meat. There are many markets in which you do not get a bid for livestock. When the market falls into this condition it is an immediate, an emergency problem, and roust be tackled along immediate and emergency lines.
If that analysis of the problem is correct, if the problem of agriculture is the problem of livestock and that of prices, and if we therefore accept the proposal that the problem of prices is that of supplies, what has brought about this great glut of supplies at this particular time? It is said to be due to the reduced purchasing power of the people. The supplies of meat in this market were 7 per cent. more than they were two years ago, when over 1,000,000 more people were in employment; supplies of meat which were sufficient for the nation with 1,000,000 more men working have gone up 7 per cent. for that number of customers. The supplies of meat have risen, the number of persons consuming the meat has fallen, for no one denies that a man swinging a hammer all day on a ship needs more meat than a man who has nothing to do but walk about and look for the result of the latest races.
The expansion of supplies, it is true, has been very considerable from the Dominions, but not by any means
entirely. The expansion of supplies on our market has been this: Roughly speaking, we consume 3,000,000 tons of meat in the year. Of that we are importing about 350,000 tons from Australia and New Zealand, about 637,000 tons from South America, but from Denmark alone we are importing 388,000 tons. That is to say, we are importing from Denmark alone more meat than from the two southern Dominions, Australia and New Zealand put together, and these supplies have increased mountainously in recent years. Not only that, but supplies have begun to come from sources from which they scarcely appeared before. There were last year 28,000 tons of bacon delivered upon this market from the basin of the River Vistula, a source which had not previously supplied pig meat to this country; from Poland 28,000 tons of pig meat came in one year. The supplies built themselves up. And then quite suddenly saturation came. In previous years, it is true, there has been a drop between June and November, averaging for the past few years about 19 per cent. A large drop is always succeeded by a subsequent rise. This year the drop has been 30 per cent. The drop was still proceeding in the most precipitous way, and none of those whom we consulted could give any hope that that curve was about to turn upwards and show a rise which in other years had usually followed the fall. Under these circumstances it was necessary to the Government—

Sir BASIL PETO: Is that a drop in prices or in supplies?

Major ELLIOT: A drop in prices. I am sorry if I gave the impression that it was a drop in supplies. Any of us who have been in the position, major or minor, of suppliers, knows that the quantities have been unstinted but that the prices have been on the precipitous curve which I have just described. It is necessary to deal with an emergency position and I have looked into the suggestions which have been made here and elsewhere for dealing with the situation. The main fact which the House has stressed is the case of urgency. What they have said, in effect, is "Unless you do something which will have its effect, in weeks rather than months, in days rather than weeks, it is impossible for the industry of agriculture as we know it, to avoid a very grave economic disaster."
That seemed to us, when we examined the position, to be a true statement of the case. The position, of course, has been under review by the Government as well as by Members of both Houses of Parliament, and we have bent our minds strenuously towards finding some solution of the difficulty with which the country and agriculture in particular is faced. We have found it necessary to envisage any and every method of dealing with this emergency and we have not in any way restrained ourselves from the examination of any method simply because it happened to agree or not to agree with something which any of us might have said in days gone past. Nothing has given me a greater feeling of—perhaps nausea is too strong a word—but a greater feeling of weariness than the continual suggestion that the President of the Board of Trade was holding up the whole policy of this country because of some foible of uprightness and was interfering with the economic development of a great country. The problem has been examined with open minds, by myself and by those of my colleagues who have done me the honour to sit down with me to consider the position, and no man could have had the advantage of more loyal or open or frank consideration of this problem, and no man could have had better backing in arriving at the solution of the problem which we are about to propose to the House.
If we have to deal with a situation of over-supply it is necessary that some way of limiting the supplies to this market must be found and found forthwith, and that solution cannot, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs has pointed out, entirely omit the fact that one of the great factors in this glut is the supply of mutton and lamb which come very largely from Australia and New Zealand and that the supply has increased very largely from Australia and New Zealand as was pointed out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Those of us who are considering these problems must say: If your solution is a tariff, on what products would you lay the tariff and, if you would lay a tariff on foreign meat, would you also lay a tariff on Dominion meat? Unless we get a straight answer to that question is it impossible for us to carry
the discussion further. There are some like my hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) who are frankly ready, not merely to go the whole hog but to add a little pig to the Whole hog, and who are ready to advocate not merely a tariff at a prohibitive rate upon foreign supplies but also a tariff at a swinging rate upon Dominion supplies. All I can say is that it seems to me that that would be contrary to the spirit, and I believe even the letter of the Ottawa Agreements and unless we can swear an oath and hold to it, what is the use of our entering into agreements even with our own people and still less with foreign countries?

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: I think my right hon. Friend will realise that I do not think there is a single Member of those who are anxious that all avenues should be considered who would ever dream of proposing a duty on the Dominions without first having obtained their consent, and if the preference is the same, we have very little doubt that the whole of the Dominions would consent.

Major ELLIOT: That may be so, but my hon. and gallant Friend is perhaps more optimistic in that matter than I am myself. I would only say that to go to the Dominions and to say to them, the day after Ottawa, "We are about to put a tariff upon you," seems to me to conflict not merely with the principles of Empire Free Trade, but with all the principles upon which we have been attempting to act, and I am not at all sure that, even so, it would effect the purpose which we desire. But consultation and agreement are necessary, and it is on that consultation that we have been engaged and it is that agreement which, as I think, we have secured.
The problem involves the restriction of supplies into this country from all sources. There are the South American source, the Australian and New Zealand source, and the Scandinavian source. All these are sources with which we are keenly desirous also of negotiating trade agreements, and in all those cases it is urgently necessary that we should carry these great customers of ours along with us. We buy from them and sell to them, and we are most desirous of seeing that no step in these negotiations is taken in a harsh and careless spirit, because our
export trade depends so much upon the good will of our customers that unless we can prove to our customers that they will benefit by what we are about to do, we may easily do greater damage to our trade than we shall secure advantage for it.
Consequently, we have had to negotiate also with the South Americans and with the Baltic countries. Both of those regions are great suppliers of meat to this country, and we have had to put it to them on an emergency basis: Here is a crisis, which is swamping one of the great commodity markets of the world, the Smithfield meat market, and causing a perpendicular dive of one of the great commodity prices of the world, the price of meat on the London market and on the retail markets of the rest of the country. I am happy to say that they agreed that that is a correct appreciation of the situation, and I am happy to say further that they were willing not merely to explore, but to come to practical agreements with us as to dealing with this emergency situation. In the first place, we acted on the basis that arrangements affecting a trade like the meat trade can be better carried through voluntarily by those engaged in the trade than by Government Departments equipped with arbitrary powers. Secondly, we found that we had to discuss the matter, first of all, with the Dominions and then with the South American group.
The President of the Board of Trade, the Secretary of State for the Dominions, and myself discussed the position on two occasions with the importers of meat from the River Plate, and following a meeting with them this morning, under the chairmanship of the President of the Board of Trade—I should like to stress that—they have informed us that they are prepared to put into effect at once a cut of 20 per cent. in the supplies of mutton and lamb.
With regard to chilled beef, they have explained to us that it is physically impossible immediately to reduce supplies for the months of November and December by as much as 20 per cent., and it is for the months of November and December that we were talking, because we realise that this is a matter which cannot be left till July or August. Four weeks' supplies, they said, are already afloat, and cattle for the fifth week are
already killed. To effect a reduction of 10 per cent. also presents great difficulties, but it can be done. The importers, therefore, are prepared to reduce supplies of chilled beef by 10 per cent. immediately, and if in the next two or three weeks sale prices do not respond adequately, the importers will take further drastic steps to reduce marketings, if necessary up to 20 per cent.
That is a practical, a drastic and a far-reaching step, and I hope that all those hon. and right hon. Members who have pressed on me all this evening the necessity of taking immediate and drastic action will back us up to the full in the action which we have now taken. That is not enough. We have also had to see the Scandinavian group.

Mr. LAWSON: Is there any guarantee that they will not reply with coal?

Major ELLIOT: These are matters which we have to consider with them. If we have the good will of these countries in considering this matter, that is a priceless asset, and we have done our utmost to preserve that good will. The Government regard the importers' offer as a reasonable one, and I should like to express, on behalf of the Government, our appreciation of the way in which they have met us in the matter. We have done our best to keep in touch with His Excellency the Argentine Ambassador on the subject, but have had, for the immediate purpose, to negotiate very largely with the Mg meat importers who are actually the people who come within the sovereignty of this country when supplies are brought within the three-mile limit and from there to our shores.
In regard to the Scandinavian position with respect to bacon and hams, to-day we have seen the representatives of some of the countries concerned, including Denmark, Holland, Sweden and Latvia. We are seeing the others to-morrow morning. We have explained to them the situation which has arisen and have expressed the hope that the Governments which they represent will see their way to co-operate in the voluntary arrangements which are now being made to deal with the present emergency. It has been and will be made clear that owing to the inter-relationships of all kinds of meat, a
comparable reduction in bacon imports must be effected at or about the same time as the reductions are made in the imports of other meats. It will be appreciated that I am not in a position to say anything further at the moment in regard to bacon and hams, but I feel sure that we shall be able to count on the good will and co-operation of the Governments concerned in the efforts which we are making. The proposal we have put to them is a proposal for not less than a 20 per cent. limitation coming into action immediately.
The position as regards the Dominions is naturally one which requires the utmost care in handling, and in that I had the assistance and co-operation of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs and the President of the Board of Trade, both of whom had the advantage—which I did not have—of having been at Ottawa and having gone through the other negotiations there. We have conferred with the representatives of the Australian and New Zealand Governments and have discussed with them the present deplorable position in regard to wholesale meat prices and its effect on the home livestock industry and, indeed, upon the livestock industry of the Empire as a whole. The prices which were breaking England were breaking Australia, and the prices which were breaking Australia were breaking New Zealand. Already in New Zealand you will find ewes of good condition brought to the packing house and fetching eighteen pence, and when ewes in good condition fetch that hon. Members can judge for themselves what a second quality ewe would be likely to fetch.
We communicated to the Australian and New Zealand representatives this evening the proposals of the South American meat trade which I have outlined, and they intimated that Australia and New Zealand would be desirous of co-operating with His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom in bringing about an improved price situation forthwith. They are communicating immediately with their Governments and have reason to believe that a reduction of shipments of frozen mutton and lamb by
10 per cent. in the ensuing two months compared with the corresponding period of 1931 will be arranged.
That is a situation which, it seems to me, brings into an entirely new light the crisis in which the British livestock industry finds itself to-day. I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that it passes the test which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Major McLean) laid down, namely, whether the banks would on that policy extend the credit of the farmer. I say without hesitation that this goes a long way, and further than any other policy which has been outlined, to meet the test. These arrangements are to run for November and December. They are necessarily tentative and provisional. They will require to be examined, and they will be examined by a standing committee which will keep in touch with the situation from week to week. The vast and important question of releases from cold storage will be examined by South American importers and Australian and New Zealand importers. Releases from cold storage have an immediate effect upon the market, much more so than the shipments which are a period of seven weeks away. We hope to give a further review in the course of the World Meat Conference which will be sitting next year, and which will have something positive and concrete to operate upon. It will have a situation in which we have been able to establish an attempt to deal with this crash in commodity price. It will have a situation where we have done our best, and where I believe we shall have succeeded, to get control of one of the great markets of the world and to make sure for once that we have a level plank on which to erect our super-structure.
The long-term policy of the Government holds good, and the policy as expressed in the Ottawa Agreements will, as we all believe, be of the utmost benefit to British agriculture as a whole. But that long-term policy will topple unless it gets a firm substratum upon which we can erect. We believe that we have secured that substratum in the negotiations which commenced at Ottawa and were carried to a successful conclusion in the discussion which finished this very evening. The matter has had to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. It may be that we have made mistakes. It may be
that the oscillation in prices resulting from our attempt at control will be greater than we had anticipated, but we have expressed the will of the House and the country in taking action. I beg the House and the country for indulgence and for clemency in this matter. We have taken great risks. We have risked many things, both in regard to trade and administration, which may lead us much further than we should have gone had it not been for the emergency with which the country is faced. But you ask for action. Here it is.

Ordered, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—[Captain Margesson.]

Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and Lost ported.

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]

Adjourned accordingly at One Minute before Eleven o'Clock.